The idea of retirement is losing its luster

The stereotype of retirement as a time to play golf, travel and relax is a relatively new concept in American history. But by now, even that idea is outdated as more older adults work longer and grapple with the need for purpose in their older years. Also, with people living longer and healthier, there may be several chapters in their lives to pursue different jobs, vocations and hobbies.

In the new book, “Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age,” James Chappel, an associate professor of history at Duke University and a senior fellow at the Duke Aging Center, looks at how the older years have changed throughout modern American history.

Rather than working until death like in the past, Americans have created a relatively recent concept of modern retirement since World War II that leaves some minorities and disabled people behind financially, Chappel explains. He examines how aging has been affected by political decisions, activism, medical advancements, and even popular culture such as the ’80s television series “The Golden Girls.”

Chappel also looks to the future of aging as America faces a demographic bubble of more older adults, the potential faltering of Social Security and a caregiving crisis.

MarketWatch: Why is it important to understand the history of old age in order to improve it going forward?

Chappel: I think that what history shows us is that grappling with the large and rapidly growing older population is a pretty recent kind of concern in social policy – one that we’ve only been thinking about for 70 or 80 years. History shows us there’s a wide variety of old age and old-age policy, and that we can feel stuck with what we have.

‘We all have to be trained to get old. It’s not obvious to us what old is supposed to be. Like it’s not obvious to us what childhood is supposed to be.’

MarketWatch: How has the moniker of “senior citizen” morphed into the phrase “older adult” or “older people,” and lost social and political power and influence?

Chappel: What’s commonly thought is that older people are an especially powerful voting bloc and AARP is this electoral juggernaut and that older people have an overwhelming amount of power in the electoral system. I think that’s not true. I think that older people as an interest group – older people organizing for old-age issues – are actually weaker than they ought to be.

If older people actually had a lot of political power, we would have saved Social Security, which we have not done even though it’s been known for decades that something has to be done. AARP supports ways to fix it, there are bills in Congress to fix it, and nothing is happening. This has the potential to be quite devastating for older people in the next 10 or 15 years, very quickly. Part of the story – why older people are less powerful than they once were – is this whole language of “older people” is extremely unclear. And it doesn’t really create this powerful interest group.

Older people can refer to anyone over age 55, and it’s designed to sort of make claims that older people are youthful and vibrant and fun-loving. I think that is good culturally, but bad politically because it makes it impossible to advocate for social policies – especially for those who need it most, like the disabled or the frail. The identity of “senior citizen,” which emerged after the 1940s, was actually a more powerful organizing tool than “older people.”

MarketWatch: You mention the television show “The Golden Girls” in the book. How do media and pop culture affect the way we view older adults, and how would you want to see older adults depicted?

Chappel: We all have to be trained to get old. It’s not obvious to us what old is supposed to be. Like it’s not obvious to us what childhood is supposed to be – is it supposed to be constant aimless playing outside, or the rigorous drilling of violin lessons? That’s a debate, and I have to decide with my family how to do that based on all sorts of cultural inputs.

I think it’s less obvious for old people. There’s no clear way to age or currently sanctioned understanding of what old age is actually for. For a long time, old age was about ethical and moral reflection – teaching and storytelling. After World War II, it was about retirement. It was supposed to be a time when you hung out and enjoyed leisure. Both of those models are in crisis. Old people are not venerated. They’re seen as drags on the economy and the climate. And the idea of retirement is losing its luster. You’re seeing lots of people going back to the workforce either because they have to or because they want to.

There’s a crisis in representation and meaning around old age, and “The Golden Girls” was a really important and interesting moment, because what that show was doing was making a case for what old age ought to be in Reagan’s America. It was basically single-gender, congregate living away from family members. They did a lot of sports, they had a lot of sex, they had a lot of different jobs. That show was about the creation of an entrepreneurial vision of old age, which for a lot of people is very effective. But for a lot of people, it doesn’t work – especially for people who don’t want to work or can’t work. Or they don’t have any friends or they don’t have any money – they are kind of the disenfranchised. That model is not available to them.

I think a lot of old-age culture is still in “The Golden Girls” mode, like “The Golden Bachelor”: These people might have their wrinkles, but they can still have sex, they can still have fun, etc. I think that’s a bit of a tired trope. I think there’s a lot of space to counterbalance that with programming with the actual realities of aging – which are very difficult, involve very difficult family relations, and involve dealing with mortality. I think those issues can be dealt with in a kind of comedic register, but I have not really seen that done sensitively. I think any kind of pop culture that could break out of “The Golden Girls” script, that could start taking morbidity and decline seriously, would be an important step.

MarketWatch: Is the whole notion of retirement outdated, and do we need a new term or notion for that portion of life?

Chappel: No, I think retirement is great. What I think is that after 1945, between the ’50s and the ’80s, there was a sense of retirement as a clearly defined part of one’s life that was linked with specific activities and retirement communities and senior centers, and there was a whole infrastructure of retirement. I think since the ’80s, we have an idea of a very flexible life course. For some people, it’s great. A lot of people keep working because they want to – for years after they need to or maybe they even should, because work offers so many opportunities for sociability and service. Some people feel useless once they retire. We have to find ways to make retirement feel more meaningful and more vigorous for people. We have to reinvent it for the 21st century.

MarketWatch: How will aging be different for today’s kids by the time they’re older?

Chappel: That depends on a lot of decisions we’re going to make in the next couple of decades. I would hope what we would do is that we defend this gift of Social Security and retirement for our children’s generation and even expand it, and our kids can look forward to a dignified and peaceful old age. That will require a revolution or at least a renovation in our social policy. There’s all kinds of ways the world will change. The most dramatic way is climate change.

One of the ways that old age was given meaning and purpose in this era of postwar capitalism is that it relied on a lot of carbon. The idea was that old people should own their own homes, drive cars and do a lot of traveling. All of these things are new. Older people in the 1920s and ’30s did none of these things – there were no cars to drive, people lived with their kids, and the age of consumer travel had not yet arrived. A set of decisions was made on what a flourishing old age would mean. After World War II, it involved maximum carbon emissions. I think the task for the 21st century is to imagine a way of aging that is more ecologically sustainable. There should be new models.

I hope by 2100 my kids still enjoy a peaceful and dignified retirement, but it’s going to look different than the globe-trotting retirements of my parents or grandparents.

MarketWatch: Have you thought about how you want to grow old and what that will look like for you?

Chappel: No. Writing the whole book was a way of postponing that monologue with myself. I’ll talk to my therapist about it.

MarketWatch: Does the country have the political will to fix and repair Social Security, or will we see it decline over time?

Chappel: Anyone who is thinking about the well-being of American citizens should see that as an enormously high priority. It is a very popular program. It’s the latest poverty-reduction program in the country. Every four years, both political candidates talk about how the other candidate is going to destroy Social Security – and then whoever comes to power begins to destroy Social Security, because to be inactive is another way to destroy Social Security. The program has not been really touched since I was born 40 years ago. I don’t currently see the political will to deal with this. I hope I’m wrong. I hope that as it gets nearer, new interest groups and coalitions will emerge to force action on the issue. But what I’ve seen in the last 50 years of Social Security politics, I’m not feeling super optimistic.

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