Stay working to stay happy
Many people facing retirement are realising that they may be happier working and may have trouble adapting to retirement.
Work provides a sense of social connection, structure for daily living, intellectual challenge and indeed, meaning – more so than our leisure activities, Darren Wickham, an actuary at Mercer Human Resource Consulting, argued in a presentation ‘Is it time to retire ‘retirement’?’ he made to the biennial conference of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia.
He argued that the idea of retirement is outdated and unnecessary in 2007. “We’re having too much fun at work, and we should stay there,” he said.
Voluntary retirement is a recent phenomenon, which began in the 1960s as a means of relieving the (then) high rate of unemployment and of easing older, less productive workers out of the workforce to make way for younger workers.
But times have changed. Unemployment is the lowest it’s been for 33 years and the next few decades will see an increasing shortage of labour as the birth rate stays low (currently at 1.7 children per couple and falling).
He says that instead of the concept that we’ll work continuously until 65 and then retire to a life of leisure, we should aim for a life where we work for a period, leave work to do other things – raise children, study, run a part-time business or do something else – then go back to full-time work until the next transition, and so on.
The superannuation industry – cheerleaders of the idea of forced retirement and leisure – won’t be too keen on the idea. But Wickham argues the rules governing super funds could be changed so that people could access their money when they take a break from the workforce and then go back to contributing to it when they’re back at work.
