Midlife Career Change: If you are going to live until 100, it's a good way to avoid burn-out

Interesting post at AARP about midlife career changes. If you are going to work until 65, then changing careers at 58 may not make sense as you only have 7 years left of your working life and are likely to take an earnings hit in the new career. You simply might not be able to afford to make the change no matter how much you want to do so.

However, let's say that you are 58 but plan to keep working until the age of 75. You now have 17 years to work and more importantly 17 years for which you want to avoid burnout. If changing careers helps you avoid this burnout then you might not be able to not make the switch (double negative intentional).

Why would someone want to work past the earliest date of retirement? It turns out that the joys of not working can be vastly over-rated, especially for people who enjoy their job and the people they work with. Rent "About Schmidt" to get Hollywood's take on it. Furthermore, with the rising costs of healthcare and the expected gains in life expectancy, it might be prudent to work at least into your 70s. But that will be no fun if you don't like your job and it's hard to enjoy your job if you don't like your career.

According to a 2005 study conducted by Merrill Lynch, 76 percent of baby boomers intend to "retire" and keep right on working and earning—most after launching a new career. "In many cases longer life spans and extended work spans translate into multiple careers," observes Jeri Sedlar, coauthor of Don't Retire, Rewire! (See below.)

Of course the decision may be made for you by a corporate downsizing or layoff. The silver lining there is that this might be what was required to make the big step. However, even it won't reduce the risks of entering into a new career or a guarantee that it will bring happiness.

Additional reference:

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Note: an earlier version of this post had 27 and not 17 years. Longevity is one thing but bad math is quite another. I thank the two people who left comments for taking me to task.