Many millennials expect to work until they die

Parent Cafe
101

“For examples, Merton & Scholes were given the Nobel in 1997 for their work on their valuation of stock options which was performed in the early 70s. Fischer Black, who was a co-author with Scholes, died in 1995, and therefore did not receive a Nobel.”

Merton was 29 and Scholes was 32 when they did this work. Fischer Black was 35 in 1973. Unfortunately for most there is significant decline with age.

I’m a 65 year old theoretical physicist. I know of no physicist who did anything at that age approaching what they did when they were younger - a good example is Einstein.

102

There is a difference in cognitive decline and lack of ability to function at a high level in the work place. @ShrimpFarmer seems to be equating 60’s with 70’s as well.

103

Some of the best docs I have are older–in their late 50s-70. Some of the younger ones just don’t have the experience to integrate knowledge with practice.

H did find it tiring at 70 to keep up with the “kids” who were decades younger and could learn and retain things so quickly. He still had the deep understanding of the organization and how to get things done that the younger colleagues lacked.

104

My FIL will be 75 in 2 days - he is gainfully employed as an electrical engineer. He immigrated to the US when he was 60 so his SS is minimal. He basically has no choice but to continue working. His English is so-so and he has hearing issues but he has 50+ years of experience in his unsexy field that probably does not attract enough young people.
I am approaching 60. I stay away from creative work but I can hold my own in what I do. Lately I noticed that I make more and more mistakes but I always catch them before they become a problem and @DocT gets disappointed that he suddenly cannot trade his options. However my mistakes are really mostly trivial typos. Young guns make conceptual mistakes because they do not understand what they are doing or did not think all implications through.

105

My father is 82. He just retired as a cardiologist 6 months ago. He got bored at home so he works at the hospital one day a week. His work is what keeps him happy and healthy.

106

My Dad is about to be 80 years old. Most of you would be STUNNED if you met him. He is slim, trim, healthy, energetic, mentally every bit as sharp as most posting here, even the young ones. It is mind blowing. You would never guess his age if you met him.

There is hope for all of us, especially me, since I share his genes. :slight_smile:

107

My relative will be 92 this year and still helps part time at a law practice. He’s still pretty amazing!

108

@Nrdsb4, my dad is not slim, but he sounds like your dad in every other respect. He sure doesn’t look or act 79. He will be speaking at an engineering meeting this week. He just “retired,” but he still plans to do research and consulting.

109

@hebegebe What’s the ROI on all that gum you’ve purchased? :wink:

110

I think these anecdotes about 70+ yo’s working and doing great are not the norm. I wouldn’t count on good health in the 70’s & 80’s as a way to not have a retirement plan. Just as I saw that older people make no plans to go to retirement communities and insist on staying at home, sometimes it just isn’t a feasible reality.

111

Older people who insist on staying in their homes beyond when safety dictates otherwise are selfish. Many in the older generation might have cared for elders in the home, but the elders didn’t last as long, and surely not the sick who are being kept alive today due to medical advances. There is a reason that 40% of caregivers die before the ones they are caring for…

112

@usualhopeful I think you misread what I said, FDR’s policies would be categorised as Socialist in the post-McCarthy era and today, as can be seen with candidate hopeful Bernie Sanders running on a platform not too far removed from FDR’s. The Communist Party portion was more directly about the Boomer/Gen Xers who seem to carry the belief “millenials” are far more Left-leaning than previous generations.

113

I plan to work until my full retirement age of 67. I’ve been laid off three times since college and didn’t work full-time when my kids were little, so I have to make up for some lost time. I anticipate having my SS, state employee defined-benefit pension and my husband’s Army pension to live on (he’s 8.5 years older than me and I fully expect to be a widow at some point in time.) I also have a 401K with the state, and hope to be able to leave it alone except for big things like major home repairs. Time will tell …

114

‘There is nothing sadder than working with a person in their mid 60’s who used to be sharp but just can’t keep up anymore’.

I think what is sad is this statement and must have been written by someone under 30 or in their 30’s.

I am in my late 50’s and feel sharper than ever. I don’t think I am exception either. People my age (if they’ve done their parenting job right with the exception of children who may have health issues) have independent, grown children and now have lots of time on their hands so they are able, if they choose to do so, put a lot of time and energy into their work.

I work in a setting where there is quite an age range and what I find is while the ‘kids’ are very technically savvy, they lack the tact and work ethic that cannot be taught in college. This only comes with years of experience. I will admit I cannot touch them technically. After all, they have just come out of college and very strong in the latest technologies. However, those in their 30’s are juggling work and family and tend to miss work for school outings, sick kids, etc., work from home at the drop of a hat, while people my age tend to treat something like working from home as a privilage not a right.

115

On the subject of cognitive decline with age, research has shown that it does occur. It’s not that surprising - our brain cell count declines from the late teens/early 20s onwards.

That same research has shown that added experience more than makes up for it. The sports analogy used by the poster who started this discussion is a really poor comparison; you can be physically incapable of taking advantage of your experience at the pro level by the mid-30s, and earlier in some sports. The mind ages far more slowly.

Of course, this is more true in some fields than in others. It’s quite possible that theoretical physicists working at the limits of our existing knowledge need all the cognitive ability and mental flexibility a human brain can afford - and will have fewer groundbreaking accomplishments later in life, as @DocT noted. The same may be true of pure mathematics. Both are fields where you can train your mind to think a certain way, but there’s only so much that experience will help you with; a 25-year-old and a 55-year-old can understand a theorem just as well, and the 25-year-old may be less set in his/her ways and more flexible, and thus arrive at more new conjectures.

Most jobs aren’t like this, because most jobs involve specific tasks or types of tasks that become much easier with experience. The laws change, medicine progresses, accounting practices are fluid, and the next APA or Chicago Manual of Style may shift the way people who write professionally use the English language. Lawyers, doctors, accountants, and editors/publishers will still be tweaking how they use their years of experience, not throwing those years out of the window.

Where you do see real cognitive decline, affecting work in many cases, is in a person’s 70s and 80s. Because the human body isn’t designed to survive that long, it starts to break down, and the brain isn’t locked up in a magic box that’s immune to this effect. That’s what we’ve seen in cases like that of Ronald Reagan, who was starting to slip by the end of his presidency. On the other hand, there are the Reagans but also the Jimmy Carters, (still going strong at 91).

Nobody with a career dependent on mental rather than physical work should depend on working until 80, because life is full of things that can go wrong or change our priorities. That’s not to say we can’t hope to do so, or that there aren’t people who work as well in their 60s as in their 30s and remain effective well after “retirement age.”

116

It’s hard to imagine being old and weak when you’re young and strong.

I had never imagined myself retired or wanting to be retired, but I had to accept it when I got laid off at an old age. I rely utterly on social security retirement money; it fortunately is adequate. Careful spending and avoidance of spending where possible is what makes it work. Generally there is less you want to do when you’re old (although there is a lot of denial about this in the common perception).

117

I’m fortunate enough to have a public sector job with a well funded pension. I fully expect to retire by the time I reach my sixties…having said that, I doubt it very much I’ll ever have the means or even desire to purchase my own home.