Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are taking
on a, well, a truly immense topic. Maybe one
of the single biggest financial and social challenges
we all face, retirement. And it's so much more
than just, you know, quitting your job. What
we're really looking at today is retirement as
this huge phenomenon that has completely reshaped
modern life. Right. Our sources define it, you
know. pretty clearly. It's the permanent withdrawal
from your job. But even then, we have to immediately
talk about semi -retirement. That gray area where
you're not fully working but not fully stopped
either. Exactly. You're just dialing it back.
It's a huge and growing trend. OK, so let's unpack
this. We have an incredible stack of sources
today. I mean, it stretches from the late 1800s
all the way to these super complex mathematical
models that planners use right now. Indeed. And
our mission here is really threefold. And it's
built specifically for you, the listener. First,
we need to get into the history. You'll be surprised
how recent this whole concept is. And we have
to trace how the funding for it completely changed.
Second, we're diving deep into the human side
of things. You know, the personal, the economic,
the social factors that make someone decide,
OK, now's the time. And the third part. The third
part is the hard math, the technical calculus
of it all. We'll break down the models people
used to plan for this to actually try and achieve
financial independence. And just to set the stage
for how much things have changed, especially
in the U .S., our research turned up a really
surprising fact. As of early 2023, Only about
15 percent, one five of private industry workers
had access to a traditional pension plan. It's
a staggering number. And to really feel that
contrast, you have to look at the public sector.
Government workers. Right. State, local, federal
employees. For them, it's almost 75 percent.
Wow. That's 60 point gap. That's the whole story
right there. It's a story of a massive shift
from a guaranteed income provided by an employer
to a system where, well, all the risk is on you.
So let's jump. straight into that history because
this is where you really see what a new invention
this is. We just take it for granted. But for
almost all of human history, retirement, it just
wasn't a thing. That's absolutely correct. I
mean, if you look at the records before, say,
the 18th century, the sources are pretty clear.
Average life expectancy was somewhere between
26 and 40 years. Which is an insane number to
even think about. It is. And you have to be careful
with it, of course. High infant mortality really
skews that average down. But. Even if you made
it through childhood, the idea that you'd live
long enough to be too old to work but still have
decades ahead of you, that was incredibly rare.
So the model was simple. You worked as long as
you were able. And if you couldn't, you relied
on family or, you know, charity. There was no
institutional system for a long period of leisure
at the end of your life. That's a modern invention.
So when did this idea actually start to emerge?
Really in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
you had people living longer, cities were growing,
and industrial jobs were just not something an
older worker could physically do forever. So
society needed a solution. It did. And the biggest
milestone, the one all the sources point to,
is Germany in 1889. What happened there? That's
when Chancellor Otto von Bismarck introduced
the first national retirement benefit system,
the very first one. 1889. So we're talking about
what our great grandparents generation maybe.
They were the first people in history who could
actually expect to stop working at a set age
and get a check from the state. That's the scale
of the shift. I mean, it's a seismic change in
just three or four generations. And once that
idea was out there, it became a worker's right,
something to fight for. It did. In a lot of developed
countries, it's not seen as a gift from the government
anymore. It's a fundamental right. Some countries
even have it written into their constitutions.
So let's talk about the funding, because this
is where the U .S. story gets really interesting.
We mentioned that old school pension, the defined
benefit plan. Right. The defined benefit or DB
plan. It was a promise. A promise of what? A
promise from your employer that starting at a
certain age, you would get a specific, predictable
monthly payment for the rest of your life. And
crucially, the company was on the hook for all
the investment risk. That sounds pretty good.
So what happened to it? Why is it so rare now
in the private sector? In a word, risk. Companies
started to realize that guaranteeing those payments
for a workforce that was living longer and longer.
It created these huge, unpredictable liabilities
on their balance sheets. It was too expensive
and too risky for them. Exactly. Which leads
us straight to the new standard, the defined
contribution, or DCE plan. The 401k, the IRA,
the things we all have now. Right. And the defining
feature of the DCE plan is that massive shift
in responsibility we talked about. How so? Well,
in a DCE plan, your employer might contribute
some money. Maybe they'll match what you put
in. but they make zero promises about what you'll
get at the end. The final amount depends entirely
on how much you save, what you invest in, and,
well, how the market does. Precisely. All of
that risk, the market risk, the risk you'll live
too long and run out of money, it moved from
the company's books directly onto your shoulders.
Which is why, you know, financial literacy isn't
just a nice skill to have anymore. It's a survival
skill. You have to be your own portfolio manager
now, your own risk analyst. Before we move on,
let's circle back to that idea of pre -tirement
for a second. It sort of challenges the whole
idea of a permanent stop. It does. The sources
see it as... People looking for an alternative
to that hard binary choice. You know, either
you're working 60 hours a week or you're doing
nothing. So people are finding a middle ground.
They are. They might cut back their hours or
become a consultant or switch to a less stressful
part -time job that they actually enjoy. Is that
a choice or is it a necessity? It's a mix. For
some, it's absolutely a lifestyle choice, a way
to downshift. But for a lot of people, especially
those who caught the tail end of that shift from
pensions to 401k, the math is just harder. So
they have to keep working in some capacity. They
do. To bridge a financial gap? Maybe to keep
their health insurance until Medicare kicks in?
Or just to delay taking Social Security for a
few more years to get a bigger check? Okay, so
that's the foundation. Let's move on to the age
itself, the standard retirement age. The data
we looked at shows it varies wildly across the
globe, right? Somewhere between 50 and 70. The
variability is huge, but the big macro trend,
the thing you really need to grasp, is that in
most developed countries, that age is slowly
but surely creeping up. And this is just a matter
of demographics and math, isn't it? It is. People
are living longer, healthier lives. So the public
pension systems, like Social Security in the
U .S., they have to pay out benefits for more
and more years. And if the money coming in stays
the same, but the money going out for longer...
You've got a problem. You've got an insolvency
problem. Yeah. And you only have a few levers
to pull. You can cut benefits, you can raise
taxes, or you can push back the age when people
can claim. Most countries have chosen to push
back the age. So what are some of the examples
the sources give us? Well, here in the U .S.,
the full retirement age for Social Security is
gradually moving up to 67. That should be finished
by 2027. OK. You see a similar thing in Spain.
They're moving from 65 to 67. And of course,
there's France. Right. There were massive protests
there over this. Huge protests. But they're still
in the process of raising their age from the
low 60s to the mid to high 60s. It just shows
that even when the math is simple. The politics
are incredibly difficult. And sometimes when
a system is really on the brink, the changes
can be much more drastic. The example of Iran
comes to mind. That's a really instructive case.
They were facing a potential bankruptcy of their
Social Security system. What are they going to
do? They massively increased the work requirement.
The sources say workers now need a 42 -year history
of paying into the system to get full benefits.
42 years. 42 years. That means you basically
have to start working full -time without any
long breaks from the time you were a teenager
just to qualify. It's an extreme measure, but
it shows what can happen when the numbers don't
add up. But even as the general age is going
up, there are these really interesting exceptions
to the rule, groups that can retire much, much
earlier. Yes. And these exceptions are sort of
a societal bargain. We see it in high stress,
dangerous professions. Like police officers.
Exactly. In many places, police can retire with
half pay after just 20 years of service. That
means they could be retiring in their early 40s.
Or they can go 30 years and get three quarters
pay. And the military has a similar structure.
A very similar system. After 20 years of active
duty, you're eligible for retirement. The system
recognizes the physical toll. The risk, the burnout,
and it gives them an off -ramp that the general
public just doesn't have. That contrast is incredible.
A police officer potentially retiring at 42 while
an office worker is trying to make it to 67.
It's not one system, it's a whole patchwork.
It is. And to understand how that patchwork really
affects people's decisions, researchers need
amazing data. And that brings us to the big longitudinal
studies our source is focused on. And when we
say longitudinal, we mean studies that follow
the same exact people for decades, right? That's
right. And it's so powerful because retirement
isn't just one decision you make in your 65th
birthday. It's the end result of decades of your
health, your wealth, your family all changing
over time. A snapshot just can't capture that.
The big one in the U .S. is the Health and Retirement
Study or HRS. Yes, the HRS is the absolute gold
standard. It started back in 1992. And every
two years, it surveys this huge nationally representative
group of Americans over the age of 50. And they're
asking about more than just their 401K balance,
I assume? Oh, much more. Of course, they get
deep into the financials, assets, income, pensions.
But what makes it so rich is that they also track
health conditions like diabetes or joint problems.
They track work history, family changes, even
psychosocial things like how optimistic you are
or how much risk you're willing to take. So you
could see if someone's personality in their 50s
predicts their retirement timing in their 70s.
Exactly. It's the engine behind almost all modern
retirement research. And the brilliant part is
they designed it to be replicated in other countries.
Which is where the European studies come in.
Right. You have the English Longitudinal Study
of Aging, or ELSA. And then there's SHARE, the
Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe.
And SHARE is huge. It's monumental. It covers
14 countries in Europe. plus Israel. And because
it's modeled on the HRS, researchers can make
these amazing cross -national comparisons. They
can ask, you know, is this behavior we see in
the U .S. a universal human thing or is it just
a weird side effect of our specific Social Security
system? So we basically have this global laboratory
that's been running for 30 years, tracking everything
about aging. And that's the foundation for understanding
what really drives these decisions. OK, so with
all that incredible data as a backdrop, let's
drill down into the factors themselves. And the
first one is. what the sources call the financial
magnet. There's this really interesting clustering
effect. It's one of the most solid findings across
all these studies, globally. People are overwhelmingly
more likely to retire exactly on their birthday
when they become eligible for a pension. So in
the U .S., that's age 62 for early Social Security
and then the full retirement age, 65 or 67. Exactly.
Those ages act like powerful magnets pulling
people out of the workforce. And here's the paradox,
right? The actual financial difference between
retiring at, say, 62 versus 63 is often what's
called actuarially fair. Let's unpack that term.
Actuarially fair means that, on average, the
total lifetime benefit you're expected to get
is about the same. How does that work? Well,
if you retire early, your monthly check is smaller,
but you get more of them. If you wait, your check
is bigger, but you get fewer of them. So in theory,
it's a wash. The math is neutral. So if the math
is a wash, why does everyone rush for the exit
at 62? Psychology. It's a focal point. It's a
social signal that says it's okay to start now.
People gravitate towards that simplicity and
social norm instead of doing a complex optimization
calculation. Okay, that makes sense. Now let's
talk about just raw wealth, the ability to buy
your leisure time. The more money you have, the
earlier you retire. That seems intuitive. It
is the general pattern, yes. But it's actually
tricky for researchers to prove that wealth causes
early retirement. Why is that? Because maybe
the people with high wealth are just the type
of people who are disciplined savers. And that
discipline is what's really driving the early
retirement plan, not the money itself. It's a
classic correlation versus causation problem.
So how did the researchers get around that? How
did they isolate the pure effect of wealth? They
looked for what they call an exogenous wealth
shock, basically a windfall of money that you
didn't plan for or earn through your own discipline.
Like winning the lottery. Or... The best example
from the HRS data, receiving a large inheritance.
A slightly morbid research tool, but very effective.
Very effective. And the data is so precise, they
found that receiving an inheritance increases
the probability of retiring earlier than you
expected by 4 .4 percentage points. And what
is that in relative terms? It's about a 12 %
jump compared to the baseline retirement rate.
It's a clean, direct signal. When unexpected
money shows up... a significant number of people
use it to buy back their time. All right, let's
tackle a big one. Economic shocks. Specifically,
the 2008 financial crisis. The story we all heard
was that everyone's 401k got destroyed, so people
had to delay retirement for years. That was the
narrative, absolutely. But the research we looked
at... It really challenges that. It does, significantly.
The HRS data showed that older workers, the ones
closest to retirement, often had less exposure
to the stock market crash than you'd think. Why?
Because they'd already moved their money into
safer things. Exactly. They were already in more
conservative bonds and fixed income stuff. So
while it hurt, it wasn't as catastrophic for
the 60 -year -old as it was for the 40 -year
-old. But the chaos of the recession still had
a huge effect. What about layoffs? That's the
key. That was the real story. Another study looked
at job losses during that time, and the layoffs
hit older, more expensive workers really hard.
It was a massive push factor. So they didn't
choose to retire. They were forced out. That
effect was so powerful, the researchers estimate
that the increase in retirements due to layoffs
was almost 50 % larger than the decrease in retirements
due to the stock market crash. Wow. So the net
effect of the Great Recession was actually more
retirements sooner. That's what the data suggests.
Being pushed out of your job was a much bigger
driver than pulling back because your portfolio
took a hit. Okay. Shifting gears to health. The
link here seems obvious. Poor health leads to
early retirement. It's a very strong and consistent
link. The research points to specific chronic
conditions, things like hypertension, diabetes,
joint diseases. They all correlate with a higher
chance of leaving the workforce early. Now, the
sources mentioned something called justification
bias, the idea that someone might quit their
job because they hate it, but then tell the survey
it was because of their bad back. It's a possibility
researchers always have to consider. Yeah. But
the link between objective health data and retirement
timing is so strong that most believe that bias
is a pretty small effect. But there's a flip
side to this health story, a really critical
one. There is. And it's a powerful warning. Some
of the U .S. studies using that same HRS data
show the causal arrow can point the other way.
You mean retirement can make your health worse?
It can. Both physical and mental health have
been shown to decline after retirement in some
people. How is that possible? You have to think
about what work provides beyond a paycheck. It's
routine. It's social interaction. It's cognitive
challenges, a sense of identity. When you suddenly
remove all of that structure, it can lead to
loneliness, less physical activity, and a real
decline in well -being. So your retirement plan
needs to be more than just a financial plan.
It needs to be a life structure plan. It absolutely
does. Let's talk about another huge factor, your
spouse. This decision is rarely made alone. Almost
ever. Most people are married at retirement age,
and there's a very strong tendency to coordinate.
The data is clear. Men are much more likely to
retire if their wives are already retired, and
the same is true for women. That makes sense.
You want to have your leisure time together.
Right. And it can create interesting timing issues
since husbands are often a few years older than
their wives. One person might have to wait or
the other might have to go a bit earlier to sync
up. The European data had some fascinating findings
on family size and gender, didn't it? It did.
A study in Spain found that for older men, having
a larger household, more kids or other dependents
living at home actually made them less likely
to retire. An income effect. A clear income effect.
You've got more mouths to feed, so the pension
check alone isn't going to cut it. You have to
keep working. And what about the difference between
Western and Eastern Europe? A really sharp contrast.
In the old member states, the more established
Western European countries, women tended to retire
earlier than men. Okay. But in the new member
states, in Eastern Europe, it was the opposite.
Men retired less than women. Why the reversal?
Researchers point to bigger gender wage gaps
and larger family sizes in those economies. In
a situation where the man is the primary breadwinner
by a large margin, he has to keep working longer
to make sure the household finances are stable
enough for both of them to retire. So local economic
reality just completely shapes the decision.
Every time. Which leads to the last factor, the
local labor market itself. The UK data on this
was just stunning. What did it show? It showed
that where you lived and what the job market
was like when you were young. could cast this
incredibly long shadow over your entire career.
How so? Specifically, workers who were exposed
to high unemployment rates in their local area
when they were, say, 26 years old. They showed
poor health and were less likely to be employed
near retirement age decades later. So a recession
in your 20s could actually impact your health
and job prospects in your 60s. That's the finding.
It's a cumulative effect. The decision you make
at 62 isn't made in a vacuum. It's the end result
of a lifetime of economic opportunities and setbacks.
OK, we've covered the history and the human factors.
Now let's get into the hard math, the calculus
of actually planning for this. And the goal is
simple, right? Financial independence. The goal
is simple, but the process is anything but. The
sources really stress that good planning has
three parts. You have to assess where you are.
identify what you need to do, and then actually
develop the discipline to do it. The sources
break a good plan down into three big domains,
financial, health, and personal. Let's start
with financial. The financial checklist is long.
It starts with the basics, your savings, your
401ks, your IRAs. Then you have to map out all
your future income streams, Social Security,
any pensions, maybe an annuity. And budgeting.
Detailed budgeting. Not just for your needs,
but for your wants. A lot of people find their
spending actually goes up in early retirement.
And then you get into the really complex stuff,
planning for inflation, planning for taxes, figuring
out the most tax -efficient way to draw down
your money. Okay, next is the health domain.
And in the U .S., this feels like the biggest
financial wildcard of all. It absolutely is.
You have to have a plan for Medicare at 65 and
for the supplemental insurance you'll need to
fill the gaps. And the big one that people ignore
is long -term care. Right. How are you going
to pay for that if you need it? And the sources
specifically call out health savings accounts,
HSAs, as a critical tool here. Because of the
tax advantages. The triple tax advantage. Your
contributions are tax deductible, the money grows
tax -free, and your withdrawals for medical expenses
are tax -free. It's the most powerful tool there
is for funding future health care. And finally,
the personal planning domain. This is where the
numbers meet reality. This is where you ask the
big questions. What kind of life do you actually
want to live? Do you want to travel? Where do
you want to be? And then you have to model the
great unknowns. Like what? Market returns, inflation,
and the big one. How long are you and your spouse
going to live? You can't just use today's averages.
You have to plan on living longer than that.
So when you're starting this process, do you
try to do it all yourself or do you hire someone?
The whole DIY versus planner debate. The DIY
route is more possible than ever. There are some
really sophisticated online tools out there.
But a good planner can be invaluable. The key
thing our sources warn about is understanding
how they get paid. Fee -based versus commission.
Exactly. A fee -based planner charges you for
their time and advice. A commission advisor gets
paid to sell you specific products. And you just
have to be aware that that commission structure
can create a potential conflict of interest.
Okay, let's get into the real technical stuff.
The sources start with a really simple model
to illustrate the savings burden. The zero real
interest rate model. This is a great thought
experiment. It strips away all the noise of the
market and just looks at the raw numbers. It
assumes your investments earn 0 % after inflation
and taxes. So your money doesn't grow at all
in real terms. Not at all. Which means every
single year you work has to pay for itself. Plus,
it's your of all your years in retirement. So
let's use the simple example. You work one year,
you retire one year. Then you have to save half
your pay, 50%. You spend half, you save half.
That one year of saving funds, your one year
of retirement. What about a more realistic scenario?
Work 40 years, retire for 20 years. Okay, so
every year of work. has to support itself plus
half a year of retirement so you need to save
a third year income 33 .33 % every single year
for 40 years. That really puts the scale of the
challenge in perspective. And there's a formal
formula for this, right? That includes a replacement
ratio. Right. The replacement ratio is just the
percentage of your pre -retirement income you
want to live on. The formula is a bit much for
radio, but let's use the example from the sources.
Okay. They say you work 35 years and you want
to be retired for 30 years, living on 65 % of
your old income. 35 working, 30 retired. Right.
When you run those numbers through the formula,
It tells you that you need to save 35 .78 % of
your pay every year for 35 years with zero return.
It just shows you the baseline commitment. But
of course, we don't live in a world with zero
returns. We live in a world with volatile, unpredictable
returns. And that's where stochastic modeling
comes in. This is where we have to leave the
simple spreadsheet behind. Because retirees face
two enormous, terrifying risks. The first is
longevity risk, not knowing how long you'll live.
The second is market risk. And specifically something
called sequence of returns risk. Yes. And it's
so important to understand this. It's the risk
that you get terrible market returns right at
the beginning of your retirement. Why is that
so much worse than getting them later? Because
that's when your portfolio is at its biggest.
If the market crashes in your first few years
of retirement, you're forced to sell your assets
at bargain basement prices just to live, and
you can permanently cripple your portfolio's
ability to recover. The order of the returns
matters immensely. So a simple spreadsheet that
just assumes an average 7 % return every year
is basically useless. It's dangerously misleading,
which is why planners use Monte Carlo simulations.
Okay, that sounds advanced. Break that down.
Imagine running your retirement plan through
a computer simulation, not once, but 10 ,000
times. Each time the computer uses random but
realistic values for things like market returns
and inflation. So you're creating 10 ,000 possible
futures for your portfolio. Exactly. And the
output isn't a single number. It's a probability.
It tells you... Based on all this, your plan
has an 85 % chance of success. It gives you a
way to manage the uncertainty. And what about
the other big uncertainty, longevity? How do
you mitigate the risk of just living too long?
The main tool for that is an inflation -indexed
life annuity. An insurance product. It is. You
give an insurance company a lump sum of your
money, and in exchange, they give you a guaranteed
monthly paycheck for the rest of your life, a
check that goes up with inflation. It takes the
risk of you outliving your money off the table.
Lastly, we have to talk about the rule of thumb
everyone knows, the 4 % rule. Ah, yes, the famous
4 % rule. It came out of a study called the Trinity
Study, and it basically found that historically,
if you withdrew 4 % of your starting portfolio
in your first year of retirement and then adjusted
that amount for inflation each year after, your
money was very likely to last for 30 years. But
there are some huge warnings that come with that
rule. Huge caveats. First, it's based on past
U .S. market performance, which might not repeat.
Second, it's designed for a 30 -year retirement.
If you retire at 45, that's not long enough.
The biggest one. The biggest one is that it assumes
your spending is smooth and predictable, and
that you have no other income, like a pension
or Social Security. If you have a huge health
expense later in life, the 4 % rule can fall
apart completely. It's a starting point, a rough
guide, not a lot of physics. So we've done the
history. We've done the math. Now let's talk
about the life. What does it actually look like
after you start working? We know it often triggers
big lifestyle changes, even moving. Big changes.
You see people moving to retirement communities
or they become gray nomads and just travel constantly.
And there's a whole trend of people retiring
abroad, moving to warmer climates or places with
a lower cost of living. But the research we reviewed
showed something fascinating about Americans.
For most of them, retirement doesn't actually
mean stopping work. That's maybe the most surprising
modern finding. One study identified six common
retirement lifestyles and four of the six involved
continuing to work in some way. Four out of six.
Four out of six. Continuing full -time, going
part -time, retiring, and then coming back to
work. The traditional retirement where you just
stop working for good is now the minority experience.
Why are so many people becoming working retirees?
Is it all about the money? Money is a huge part
of it, of course, the wages, the health benefits.
But the non -financial reasons are just as important.
Like what? Social interaction, sense of purpose,
and something we shouldn't underestimate, social
status. In our society, being busy and having
a professional identity is a big part of who
we are. And this whole trend ties into the massive
demographic wave of the baby boomers hitting
retirement. It creates this double pressure.
First, you have the strain on the pension systems.
But second, you have this huge brain drain from
the workforce. The economy is losing all this
skill and experience. So the working retiree
trend actually helps to soften that blow a little.
Let's talk about the emotional side. We tend
to idealize retirement, but the research shows
it can be a really vulnerable time for mental
health. It can be. The newly retired are a high
risk group for depression. And that transition
often happens at the same time as other major
life stressors. Like your own health declining.
Exactly. Or suddenly having to take on major
caregiving duties, either for your own aging
parents or for your grandchildren. You lose your
work identity and routine right when these other
huge pressures are building up. But there is
a silver lining in the data, right? For those
who adjust well. A big one. The longitudinal
studies show that healthy, engaged, retired people
are often just as happy. or even happier than
younger working adults. The key word is engaged.
Success isn't about stopping. It's about shifting
your engagement to new things. So what are the
key ingredients for a fulfilling life after work,
according to the research? The sources lay out
about six core factors. You need physical comfort
and security, of course, but you also need social
integration, a feeling of contribution, a sense
of autonomy, and simply enjoyment. A good plan
has to account for all of those, not just the
money. And to wrap this up, the researchers have
formal models for studying this whole process.
They do. There's the multilevel model, which
just reminds us that you can't look at retirement
as just an individual choice. It's shaped by
societal forces like government policy and by
organizational forces like your company's pension
plan. So it's an interaction between the person,
the company, and the country. Right. And then
there's the temporal process model, which looks
at it as a journey through distinct phases. What
are the phases? First, there's the planning phase.
Yeah. And then the decision -making phase. And
finally, the transition and adjustment phase
after you actually retire. It treats it not as
an event, but as a long, structured process.
Hashtag Hag Outro Undertale. What an incredible
journey. We started in a world where a 40 year
life expectancy made retirement a fantasy. And
we've ended up in a world where it's this incredibly
complex calculation of psychology, economics
and some pretty serious math. It really is. It's
a social right that now has to be earned through
a financial plan that demands incredible precision.
And the central theme, the thing that runs through
all of this is that massive transfer of risk.
That's the whole story. The risk has moved from
the the institution, the company, the government
directly on to the individual. And that means
sophisticated planning isn't optional anymore.
You have to use these advanced tools. You have
to. You need things like Monte Carlo simulation
to handle market uncertainty. And you have to
think seriously about things like annuities to
handle longevity risk. It's an active, ongoing
process. Absolutely. So I want to leave you with
one final provocative thought based on everything
we've unpacked today. If four out of the six
defined American retirement lifestyles now involve
continuing to work, are we actually seeing the
end of total retirement as we used to imagine
it? Are we instead just moving into a sort of
permanent state of pre -tirement where the financial
need for income and the human need for status
and contribution just blend together forever?
Something for you to think about as you may be.
explore some of those concepts we mentioned,
like downshifting or the fire movement. A fascinating
question for the entire future of work. That
is all the time we have for this Deep Dive. Thank
you for joining us. We'll see you next time.