Three(ish) Not-So-Bad Things on Aging and Longevity
Over the last year, we at the Longevity Project have been researching the challenges and opportunities of longer careers.?Today, we take the next step by releasing the results of focus groups and polling with younger workers in a research paper called “Generation Care: Helping Younger Workers Plan for Longer Careers and Longer Retirements”. Special thanks to?our friends at Corebridge Financial?who sponsored our research paper and who have themselves been thinking about younger workers and longer retirements.
Want to read every word of the research paper??Check it out here.?Just want a few highlights? Keep reading.
1. You can take this job and shove it (HT Johnny Paycheck). Here at LP Headquarters, there is nothing we like more than ruminating on the prospects of the 60-year career (the party never stops at LP Headquarters) and how they might be made more flexible, more productive and more equitable. Longer careers will almost certainly be a necessity—as John Shovin of Stanford is fond of saying, “you can’t fund a 30 year retirement on a 40 year career”—but we also think that longer careers, done right, are a part of healthy longevity. Younger workers? Let’s color them skeptical. We asked workers “If you were to live to 100, how concerning is the idea of having to add 10+ years to your working life?” Fifty-eight percent of younger workers found that idea extremely or very concerning:
On one level, it’s a reflection of our times, where views of work are being shaped by the pandemic, the Great Resignation, and the urge to quiet-quit. And it’s hard to blame younger workers for being so concerned about longer careers in the context of economic uncertainty, reduced job tenure, and declining investment from companies in their workers (more on that below).?But it also should be a wake up call to corporate America and to policy makers alike.?The?declining worker to retiree ratio?poses a huge economic risk to both companies and countries.?The best fix to that is to make work more attractive, more balanced and more flexible, so that people will want to work longer.?It’s quite doable, as many countries—and even some American companies—are moving towards that idea, but we are concerned that more companies might be attracted to going “hard core” and squeezing out some marginal work rather than building sustainable careers for their employees.?Younger workers are recoiling from this.
Shameless Self-Promotion #1:?Want to know more about the 60-Year Career??You’re in luck!?You can listen to all six episodes of Season 2 of the Century Lives podcast from the Stanford Center on Longevity?here.?
2. My Old School (HT Steely Dan). But what would make longer careers more attractive and more sensible? Younger workers have a lot of answers to that question.?Let’s start with professional training and opportunities to go back to school.?It makes perfect sense.?If you’re going to work until 2080, what you learned in school in 2020 might not seem so durable and relevant—especially when technology is turning over every 18 months or so. So, it’s not so surprising that 71% of younger workers told us that training is extremely or very important to them.
The problem is that training can be hard to come by.?60% of workers told us that they thought it was their “current employers” responsibility to provide training, but employer investment in training has declined substantially in this country over time. And you can’t necessarily depend on the federal government to fill the void, as it only spends about $75 per worker on workforce development programs.?It is an irony of the times (and not one of those good ironies) that the digital world opens up opportunities for training and development but there are fewer resources and less time for workers to use it.
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Shameless Self-Promotion #2:?Want to learn more about Generation Care and this new research (but don’t really want to plough through the entire paper)??You’re in luck again! Tune in to the Century Summit to watch JoAnne Moore of Corebridge Financial and Sammy McFarlane of Morrow discuss Generation Care and the challenges and opportunities facing younger workers as they think about longer careers and longer retirements.?Register here.?
3. I’ll be there for you (HT Rembrandts and the cast of Friends).? We’re already down to number 3 and haven’t mentioned caregiving—a rather odd oversight for a research paper entitled Generation Care.?It may not be top of our list here, but it is top of mind for young workers.? 79% of young workers told us that they expect to have care responsibilities in the “next several years.”?At a time of life when we expect people to be thinking about developing careers and building a financial framework, almost 8 in 10 younger workers are expecting to have caregiving responsibilities and are concerned about how to balance work and caregiving commitments.
Truth is, virtually every worker will have significant caregiving responsibility at some point in their careers.?Caregivers play a critical role in our social fabric and in our economy, and young workers are concerned that we are a long way from giving them the resources and support they need.
4. We're so excited by this research, we forgot how to count. A majority of younger workers are not confident that they won’t outlive their savings. Younger workers recognize a need for greater support as they plan for longer and more varied careers and for retirements that may stretch 30 years or more.
Not surprisingly, younger workers are attracted to the idea of a form of guaranteed income in addition to Social Security.?But it is also clear that younger workers are not expecting their retirement to be secured by government or employer largesse, a sound expectation in these uncertain times.?Beyond guaranteed income, younger workers believe that they would be advantaged by having a better grasp of retirement strategies and access to financial advisors.?It is a plea, as we hear it, for better guidance and support to navigate more complicated, more varied and longer careers and retirements.