Working During Retirement: Solid Plan, or Boomer Delusion?

A new study says that 77% of today's workers plan on working after their formal retirement, but current retirees would probably wish them luck.

The Pew Research Center found that by a 2:1 margin, currently employed, non-retired people think they'll work after retirement because they want to -- the balance believing that they'll have to.

Younger, better-educated, and higher income groups are more likely to expect to work by choice.

But only 27% of current retirees have ever worked post-retirement, with only 12% currently working.

While this September 21 report by the Pew Research Center discusses the relatively small number of current retirees still working, a July USA Today article -- "Many Americans retire years before they want to" -- reports that employment past 60 is difficult:

The stark reality is that most of today's middle-age workers who want to continue working after 60 or even 65 will need to find a new source of income. While nearly half of baby boomers expect to work past 65, only 13% of current retirees surveyed this year by consulting firm McKinsey & Co. actually worked past that age. Forty percent of current retirees were forced to stop working earlier than they had planned, the survey found. The average age when current retirees left the workforce: 59.

(Our report on that story is here.)

Is the disconnect between the expectations of current workers and the actual experiences of current retirees the result of changing work experiences and expectations? One argument is that while the WW2 generation's attitude might have been "I'll retire when I'm 65 and have a full pension," younger generation's have had more entrepreneurial, self-reliant (and pension-less) career paths. Could late-life employment really grow so dramatically? Or are today's pre-retirement generations delusional in thinking that they'll be employable (or starting businesses) at 70?

There will either be a lot of dashed plans, or a dramatic change in the the definition of retirement.