These 100-year-olds say working beyond retirement age is what keeps them going: 'I'll work for as long as I can'
These 100-year-olds say working beyond retirement age is what keeps them going: 'I'll work for as long as I can'
Working for the rest of your life may sound unappealing but 100-year-olds around the globe say not retiring is what keeps them feeling youthful and fulfilled.
2 were self employed, running their own businesses, one was fucking fishing, and one "cuts fabric" part time.
Show me a corporate desk slave that a) lives that long, b) works that long and c) doesn't resent their entire existence, and I might buy into this obvious fucking farcical corporate propaganda piece.
Fuck you, eat the rich.
(Not you, Op, the author)
While it is dystopian that many people have to end up working beyond retirement age, I can see why some people choose to take on a "retirement job".
Our jobs are what we do for the majority of our time, for better or worse, so once you retire there's suddenly a purposeless void where work used to be. To keep your mind going and your body moving, you need to fill that void with things you want to do - but for a lot of people it's hard to do that sustainably, so after a few years they need something else, and for some people that's a "retirement job".
Yeah there's nothing wrong with people choosing to work out of boredom. The issue is when they have to, like you said.
Choosing to work because you're bored and depressed is just a paid hobby
It's for worse for sure. What if people didn't have to worry in their 30s, 40s, and 50s about sustaining their livelihood in late stage capitalism and could instead focus on what makes them happy? I bet "retirement jobs" would look a lot different.
Corporate propaganda
Not necessarily, as another commenter said they need something "fulfilling" to do with the rest of their lives. After you've been working for 50-60+ years, 5 days a week, 8-16 hours a day, and then you suddenly have every day free you don't know what to do with the time. I've been unemployed a few times for a year at a time and after about 3-4 months it starts to get pretty boring.
My uncle lived to 100, he was completely healthy at 98 and would walk a mile or two a day around town, but broke his hip, the recovery process is practically what killed him because he could no longer be active every day. For like 6-9 months he just sat around, he's muscles and mind atrophied, and the rest of his body started to "fall apart", and he was never the same. He died about a year later.
Probably but I feel there's some truth to it. If you retire and sit on your ass all day, that is also not good for your health.
My father-in-law retired at 60. He didn't make it to 70. There's nothing for him to do so he drank almost everyday.
This less about a dystopia and more about humans need purpose in life to keep hanging on.
Papers show longer and better life outcomes for people with purpose.
... The dystopien part is where they work for someone else because they are not able to find perspective outside of their "being exploited" indoctrinated system.
I think that a significant factor in the cross section of "need purpose" and "work = purpose" comes from a sort of brainwashing though. When you're taught (intentionally or otherwise) that amount of money, marketable skills, monetization of hobbies, etc all directly correlate to your worth as a person, it's absolutely surprising nobody that people who stop working (whether through retirement, disability, having children, etc) become depressed.
I totally agree with you, except for the part where you say that it isn't dystopian. A utopian society would be beyond that frame of mind imo and retired people would feel free to explore hobbies and passions, feeling more fulfilled than they ever did selling their labor for survival. I don't think these people want to go back to work; I think they want to feel useful. And they've only ever felt useful as workers. They can't imagine any other productive use because they've never experienced it.
I think people feel useful in social contexts, people they see everyday, who depend on them, who have consistent interactions. And most people get that through work. Especially when we're talking about older people when their friends start dying. The young people at the job, at the volunteer center, at whatever, provide the connective through thread in their lives to give them purpose.
Some people are very fortunate and they can find purpose without structure, but a lot of people need that structure. I think you're 80% more likely to die within a year of your spouse dying when you're over a certain age. Just you need that social structure
Counterpoint: my nan is 104 and hasn't done a day of work since she was a Land Girl during the second world war.
What is a land girl?
In both of the world wars Britain had an organisation called the Women's Land Army. Which was a thing women could volunteer for to work on farms while the men who would normally work there were at war.
Oh yes, the classic "my job keeps my busy!" While working a fun job, part time and not caring about the money because you are rich...
No one ever truly thinks that all jobs are bad, it's the system that we are in, that forces us to work all the time while prioritizing practicality over happiness because some of us would literally go hungry otherwise.
Like most things in life, it's the lack of choice and the pressure to survive, that sucks the life out of most jobs.
If I'm still working at 100 y/o I'll kill myself at work in front of everyone, fuck it
Do a flip!
I'll do a sick flip bro then say that was for arche7ype and peace out
Do it in a way that they are forced to condemn the building.
No problem, I'm a sick bastard and will come up with something unspeakable
Depends on the "work". Is it back breaking farming or is it leeching off the company's salary while blocking younger workers from getting promoted?
Bingo. I don't know any bricklayer who is like: oh boy i wish i could work even longer.
Was hoping someone to mention this... This is the only real take here
That's cool
Hopefully one day they can do it for a cause beyond filling the coffers of the rich through exploitative work. (And also never feel obligated to work past retirement should they wish to stop)
The premium capitalist health insurance plan- extend your lifespan through mindless servitude.
That’s clearly how our hunter-gatherer bodies and minds were supposed to work.
In the future it will be a Privilege to die
The concept of retirement for working class people is new (aristocrats retired all throughout time)
- invented in Germany by a priest in 1600s but died out
- independently invented in America when a soldier in the military (late 1700s) had both his arms blown off and a law was passed for him to collect an amount for his (and family's) maintenance from the neighbors.
Before invention of retirement, the working class had the mentality that you work until you are dead with 99% of the working class in brown collar work. During the industrial revolution where most people transitioned from brown collar to blue collar work, retirement became much more common with social mobility.
During the great depression, USA legislators picked a number "65" to be the "age of retirement" with the reasoning that it would get more young people back to work. The average age of mortality at that time was ~67 years old. They did not index that age with the average age of mortality, so as life expectancy increased, there is now a period in people's life to be "retired".
Problems with how this developed:
- social security in the USA is not able to keep paying out at this rate, the age of retirement should be more closely aligned with an "indexed" age whether that is the current average age of mental incompetence or an actuarially determined "you did your time, so you can now get out and your contributions should fund the government support of you". The political cycle will probably destroy any hard to understand actuarial index, so that leaves us with the first option.
- retired people are a political force (high voter turnout). It is easy to vote to get a raise and ignore issues that would bring actual long term growth when you have a short term mentality. I think that accepting 100% of the cost of your maintenance from the government may be the price of your vote (you cannot vote if you are retired). I am sure that this is another unpopular opinion.
With that perspective, I don't know if corporations are entitled here, or the people are just doing what their ancestors did for 1,000s of years and are owning it in a positive way.
This is neoliberal lies.
- Live expectancy for people nearing retirement age has not increased much since the 1930s. The main reason life expectancy has gone up is due to childhood mortality going down.
- Life expectancy for blue collar workers has gone up even less, in recent years it is declining. To the extent that people live longer in retirement it's almost all white collar and wealthier people. Most people I know who work with their bodies are completely exhausted by the time they get to 62.
- Social security is completely financially sound. It is the most sound retirement plan there is because it is not tied to the wall street casino.
- Any projected shortfalls can be eliminated by raising the FICA contribution limit and taxing the wealthy a little more.
Well, I didn't post my sources and you didn't post sources. I think I am right but I don't want to spend the time looking it up when I am straight up told that I'm lying. I'll address your four points off the top of my head though.
- life expectancy has changed drastically for different populations and subcultures in the usa. Tweakers have a much lower life expectancy. White collar work has a much higher life expectancy. Blue collar... I bet you are right that it is about the same. I read that the current average is 74 (so 10 years longer than when retirement became codified into law) However shortly after the industrial revolution was the information revolution, so most of the gdp of the usa and other western countries is produced by these long lived white collar workers.
- yup I agree. Blue collar life expectancy is about the same as when retirement was first codified into law
- money turns to worthless over time unless it is invested and earning interest. A government is in the business of "Accountability to taxpayers on a election Cycle period". Therefore, the government is highly incentivised to kill the golden goose and spend the money and claim that they invested it wisely into roads and stuff. If I recall correctly, that is exactly what happened to the social security program, and we are now paying out as fast as it comes in. Regarding "not tied to the Wallstreet casino" as what makes an investment more financially sound, I don't follow the logic. There is some well established ways to make money on wall street:
buy and hold a low cost index of funds that diversified risk away from a single company. Have a mix of equity vs fixed income based on how soon you intend to start needing to rely on fixed income. Put your money in this exact index fund and don't worry about market ups and downs.
If you follow that investing instruction, you beat the social security administration every time in the last 30 years if you paid in the whole time you worked for 45 years.
- Taxing the wealthy is hard. There is a general rule of thumb in politics which is "those who have power don't let it go easily", and if those with power caused a politician to be favored, it is generally due to the bet that the politician will pay it back with a favor later. As far as I know, when you tax the wealthy, the wealthy are able to organize some governmental upsets/coops. The American revolution was headed by the "wealthy" of the American colonies. As far as I know, wealth also exits easily if a governmental administration is a hostile/unstable environment. All these things come together to make taxing wealthy people hard. In practice, the wealthy generally have a "high marginal tax rate" (tax rate on paper) but after all the loopholes from politician friends there is a "low effective tax rate" (tax rate actually paid).
Talking about raising the contribution limit is a moot point as government will be "accountable in this election cycle" by spending immediately based on my argument above.
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Did I say anything factually False? I hope to see any nuances that I missed.
What Is brown collar? Wikipedia says military but I don't think that is what you mean from context
I said it to mean agricultural work as in farm work.
-Agricultural revolution brown collar
-Industrial revolution blue collar
-Information revolution white collar
I'll work for 40 years (at least)
40 hours a week
And if I am lucky retire by 60
I could sit at home with all of my things
Basking in the surplus
And the empty spacehttps://ludlowpdx.bandcamp.com/track/skyline-blvd
Fuck this whole empire and it's class war, everything we "audaciously fight for" was only ever stolen from us in the first place.