In their 1965 hit My Generation, British group The Who sang one of Rock’s most famous lines — “ I hope I die before I get old”.
The teenage fans of 1965 are today’s leading-edge Baby Boomers, who have seemingly changed the lyrics to “ I hope I die before my super runs out.”
This week’s report from Deloitte on “retirement adequacy” conjures up pictures of death-bed celebrations that the lucky, soon-to-be-departed soul managed to die before his superannuation fund did.
The main thrust of the Deloitte report is that more than three quarters of Australians won’t have enough superannuation to last them through retirement, and concluded “Clearly Australians will be relying on the Age Pension for some time into the future.”
So that’s two options – adequate super or the Age Pension.
What about the third option – continuing to work in a career you enjoy, or perhaps a more exciting path – starting out on your Encore Career.
Historically, it was quite usual to continue to work for as long as your health and mobility, and career choice, permitted. When 65 was arbitrarily selected as retirement age, only 54% of men and 61% of women lived that long.
If you were in reasonable health and physically able, you continued to work, and provide income for your needs and those of your dependents.
Somehow the notion of early retirement emerged some decades back, and it became a common life-goal to stop working around 55, and then take a seat in God’s Waiting Room for an extended stay of up to 25 or 30 years.
How did that ever make sense? — either financially or from our need to be a productive contributor?
Through the activity I call “Transition to Rewirement”, people who are in physically demanding careers, from bricklayers to brain surgeons, or those who are discouraged by expensive and time-consuming accreditation or skills maintenance, or those that just want to tick “New Career” off their Bucket List, can re-invigorate and re-invent themselves by starting their unique Encore Career, either via arms-length employment, or by having a crack at starting their own business.
Now we’re talkin’ ‘bout My Generation — baby!