Book Review "Encore: Finding Work That Matters In the Second Half of Life"

Marc Freedman's “Encore: Finding Work That Matters In the Second Half of Life” is a detailed analysis about the meaningful work that members of the baby boomer generation are increasingly seeking after leaving their primary careers. Encore careers are a significant social trend that represent a new phase of an individual’s work life. Historically, the author notes, the proverbial goal of aging was to secure freedom from work. Now the goal is to secure meaningful work—that is work that has a sense of purpose.

Encore careers are not a retirement job, a transitional phase or a bridge between the end of real work and the beginning of real leisure. It’s a new stage of our working lives created in part by our lengthening life spans.

Author Marc Freedman is recognized as one of the nation’s leading social entrepreneurs and his book has a number of interesting insights. Among them:

Careers are getting shorter while lives are getting longer. Instead of wondering what one is going to do for the next few years, it’s what will one do for the next few decades.

Work is no longer considered bad for your health. Feedman cites a study of men and women born in 1920 and found that those who continued to wok at the age of 70 and beyond were 2.5 time more likely to be alive at the age of 82 than those who had retired. While there is a big difference between causation and correlation, a 250% increase is simply too big to ignore. According to Dr. Yoram Maaravi of the Hadassah Hospital Mt. Scopus, “If you put the effort into finding work that is meaningful, you are gaining life.”

People who think they are retiring end up are increasingly getting bored and then returning back to the wok force. But this time they are doing something else entirely from the primary career that they had left. For these, their attempt at “retirement” turns out to have been more like a sabbatical. The authors note that seven million Americans have done exactly this.

In addition to benefiting the individual, encore careers benefit society as a whole. Instead of pulling resources out of the system, boomers continue to contribute to it. Businesses also continue to benefit from experienced workers who are particularly productive because they are doing things that they love instead of counting days to their earliest possible retirement.

While some older workers will continue to work because of economic necessity, this doesn’t mean they won’t seek out jobs that provide new meaning. Freedman cites a particularly interesting MetLife report that noted that the biggest reason for those aged 60-65 to return to work is to “try something new.” A separate Merrill Lynch study noted that “among boomers who expect to keep working, 2 out of e expect to change fields.”

"Encore" is an enjoyable read and would be a far more useful gift than a gold watch for someone nearing the end of their primary career.

Amazon link: Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life

Considering a Midlife Career Change? Don't forget LifeTwo's Midlife Career Change FAQ

Readers might also be interested in Brent Green's "Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers". Green notes that the boomers who grew up in the sixties are good candidates for the re-ignition of their passion for improving the world in a way that many haven't felt since their adolescence. With age, they've gained perspective and with encore careers a way to combine the social good they want to do with their personal needs that they want to satisfy. (Update: Coincidentally, Brent also reviewed "Encore" on his blog here.)