Feb. 3: BEST FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE
February 3, 2025

Is America “doing retirement all wrong?”
Writing for Business Insider, Hannah Seo suggests two problems – not saving enough, and not making use of all the time – mean Americans are doing retirement “all wrong.”
Many of us think that retirement means a time “of endless leisure and zero responsibility,” reading, golfing, and binge-watching TV, but there are other factors at play, she writes. Americans aged 65 to 74 spend an impressive average of seven hours a day on leisure (including four hours of TV watching), which is getting close to twice as much time as adults aged 25 to 54.
However, this sedentary lifestyle “is associated with earlier death,” she continues. People are also living “15 years longer than they did 100 years ago,” meaning retirement is growing into a much longer segment of one’s overall life – decades.
“While there’s much handwringing over how to save up enough money to enjoy those work-free years, much less discussed is how we should spend those years. More and more research is finding that both physical and social activity are crucial for well-being in old age — they keep people happier and living longer,” Seo explains.
“But that’s not what most people are doing. Americans are doing retirement all wrong,” she contends.
The fact that we are all working longer and living longer creates a couple of problems – “how to pay for a longer retirement, and how to spend their time.”
Research from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College has found that one solution to both problems is simply to work longer, the article continues. In the U.S., the piece continues, more folks are working later into their lives and claiming their government retirement benefits (here in Canada, this would be things like the Canada Pension Plan and/or Old Age Security) while still working.
“Of Americans 65 and older, nearly 11 million, or about 19 per cent, are employed, and that number is projected to rise to nearly 15 million by 2032. Twenty years ago, just under five million Americans over 65 were employed,” she writes.
Why keep working? Work, the article explains, “fulfills a lot of needs that people don’t know how to get elsewhere, including relationships, learning, identity, direction, stability, and a sense of order.” The article goes on to note that research by Mass Mutual found that one-third of new retirees reported becoming “unhappier” in retirement than at work, and a study by the University of Michigan links “some of the negative effects people can experience in retirement” to “lifestyle changes, such as being less active and social in the absence of work.”
If not work, what else do we need to address post-retirement blues?
A sense of purpose, the article suggests, is key.
Virginia-based retirement coach Dee Cascio tells Business Insider that the transition from work to retirement is not “a piece of cake” and can be “like jumping off a cliff.”
“Cascio has found that when helping clients bring purpose back into their lives in retirement, it can help to think about the `six arenas of life’: work, relationships, leisure, personal growth, finances, and health. A lot of people have drawn their sense of purpose or identity from work, and they might want to continue doing so through jobs or volunteering in retirement, she says. But any of these arenas can be a source of purpose,” the article notes.
In fact, Cascio tells Business Insider, if you haven’t been taking care of your health, doing so in retirement can provide you with that sense of purpose.
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Written by Martin Biefer

Martin Biefer is Senior Pension Writer at Avery & Kerr Communications in Nepean, Ontario. A veteran reporter, editor and pension communicator, he’s now a freelancer. Interests include golf, line dancing and classic rock, and playing guitar. Got a story idea? Let Martin know via LinkedIn.
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