Peak 65: The Shift to an Older Society Begins
With more people aged 65+ than ever, there are big implications for older workers, employers, and the very definition of retirement.
Back before I started Further, I thought something was seriously wrong with me.
I only felt truly alive and energized when I was starting something new. While I celebrated my achievements, the sense of satisfaction was fleeting.
When I did a guided personal development exercise to discover the one word that defined me, it ended up being further. For me, the saying “Happiness is a way of travel, not a destination” seemed apt, but I still thought I was weird.
It was the process of writing the early version of Further that helped me understand that having a growth mindset and a strong need for self determination was why I’m the way I am, and it’s not a bad thing.
Later, I discovered the U-Shaped Happiness Curve that helped explain the discontent of my 40s despite being at the height of success. It’s no coincidence that I sold my company shortly after I turned 50, because I realized that I simply wanted something different out of life.
That led to reading The Longevity Economy by Joseph Coughlin in 2018, which prompted me to change the focus of Further to issues related specifically to midlife. Retirement became a natural focus, especially when people constantly asked if I was going to retire after the acquisitions.
My thought in response was, have you met me? How am I expected to just stop doing what I do when it’s what I enjoy most? It’s not really about money.
So I now find myself in the weird position of being an anti-retirement advocate. I'm normally a “you do you” type of person, but in this case the idea that retirement is some great reward is hilariously wrong for the vast majority of people.
As fellow anti-retirement advocate Carl Honoré recently pointed out, the word “retire”means to withdraw. And who wants to withdraw from the world just because they’ve hit a 65th birthday?
Quitting work at 65 doesn’t make a lot of sense given you may have 30+ years left. Even beyond the lack of significant retirement savings among a big chunk of Generation X, very few people have the funds to live 30 years without working.
But the bigger point is, who wants to live 30 more years without working? It may sound good in the abstract, but the choice to withdraw from the world according to some notion of planned obsolescence is very strange. Ironically, you’ll likely die earlier because of retirement.
This big demographic shift to an older society is a blessing in disguise. People are living longer, healthier lives, which means more time to engage in meaningful activities. For many people, that will mean doing work that fulfills a sense of purpose in addition to providing a paycheck.
The longevity economy will soon just be “the economy.” And it will allow for new products, services, and companies to emerge in a completely redefined market. More importantly, it will be older people who are making it happen.
I shouldn’t be surprised at the level of mainstream awareness that has emerged in the last year about the longevity economy. After all, that’s why I decided to go beyond Further and launch Longevity Gains in the first place.
Hopefully you’re busy with your own longevity economy business, or are at least convinced to get going. Longevity Gains will soon be shifting to a community of like minded marketers and entrepreneurs that can help navigate this new reality. Join us in Premium if you’re interested in participating.
For those on the fence, here are two recent examples that prove the next big thing is already here:
Redefining Old Age (CBS News)
The Seismic Shift That’s About to Change the American Workplace (Esquire)
Profiting from Peak 65
I’ve said before that the indisputable tipping point for the shift to the 50+ longevity economy is 2030:
That’s when every Baby Boomer is over 65.
That’s when the first Gen Xers reach 65.
That’s also when the first Millennials turn 50.
But the shift to Peak 65 is already happening, beginning this year with more record-setting years to follow:
We’re now living in “Peak 65,” with record numbers hitting age 65 in 2024, 2025 and 2026 — 11,200 a day to be exact, or 4.1 million in total, according to the Alliance for Lifetime Income’s Retirement Income Institute, which coined the term.
Most of the Peak 65 attention has focused on the somewhat dim financial prospects for many reaching what’s been traditionally viewed as the retirement age. But Peak 65 has big implications for older workers, employers, and the very definition of retirement.
We already know that the key criterion for healthy aging and therefore more active consumerism is a positive attitude about aging more than a demographic cohort. But there is a broad demographic trait that is heavily correlated with that attitude, and that’s education level.
Higher educational attainment also correlates with a desire to keep working past traditional retirement age. That desire combined with an active aging lifestyle are the backbone of the longevity economy:
“The better educated you are, the more likely you are to have a job and today’s older adults are much better educated than 35 years ago. They’re also in better health, so that enables work,” Fry said.
As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, there are two broad paths to get started with today. One involves Baby Boomers who are already retired or are now retiring, thanks to their abundant savings. The other path involves younger Boomers and Generation X (and eventually Millennials) who will upend the retirement status quo and work much longer:
Among boomers surveyed, 40% want to gradually decrease their time working and 60% want to retire by stopping work entirely. But among Gen Xers, a striking 67% want to gradually phase out of working.
“The boomers prefer sort of an end date. I think there’s a mindset shift that’s happening in Gen X — and millennials — who say, ‘Yeah, I want to work and I want to be fulfilled, but I want to do it with flexibility to accommodate my bigger life,’” said Littlefield. “They’re preferring a more phased, de-escalation offboarding approach to retirement.”
I was a tad early with Further, but I also tended to not treat it as a primary aspect of my business. It is now, and will remain that way for as long as I keep going.
‘Older Workers are Good for Business.’ Why Peak 65 is Such a Big Deal for Workers and Retirement (MarketWatch)
The 401(k) Effect
An article in Fortune spells out the catalyst for the end of retirement as we know it beyond longer life expectancy and healthspans:
Generation X will be the first to reach retirement under the new paradigm: the widespread move from DB plans to defined contribution (DC) or 401(k) plans in the U.S. This is a barely cited yet fundamental societal change that shifted the responsibility to save for retirement from employers to individual employees.
It’s true that the shift from pensions to the self-directed 401(k) is barely cited. But it was cited in the Longevity Fundamentals ebook you received as a Longevity Gains subscriber. You did read it, right?
That’s all for now. Have a great rest of your week!
Keep going-
Brian
P.S. If you’re interested in the upcoming Longevity Gains community for marketers and entrepreneurs working in the longevity economy, join us in Premium and enjoy all the course-level training (with more on the way). Details on the community coming soon!