Unretirement:How Baby Boomers are Changing the Way We Think About Work, Community, and the Good Life

The old idea of “retirement” -- describing a time when people gave up productive employment and shrank their activities -- was a short-lived historical anomaly. The Boomer generation, poised to live longer in better health than any before, is already discovering unretirement -- extending their working lives, often with new careers, entrepreneurial ventures, and volunteer service. This summary provides key insights and practical advice for Boomer employees and employers about to navigate this exciting, but unsettled, new frontier.

The budget battles of recent years have amplified the warnings of demographic doomsayers who predicted that a wave of Baby Boomers would bleed America dry, bankrupting Social Security and Medicare as they faded into an impoverished old age. On the contrary, argues award-winning journalist Chris Farrell in our summary of Unretirement, we are instead on the verge of a broad, positive transformation of our economy and society.

The old idea of “retirement” -- describing a time when people gave up productive employment and shrank their activities -- was a short-lived historical anomaly. Humans have always found meaning and motivation in work and community, Farrell notes, and the Boomer generation, poised to live longer in better health than any before, is already discovering unretirement -- extending their working lives, often with new careers, entrepreneurial ventures, and volunteer service. Their experience, wisdom -- and importantly, their continued earnings -- will enrich the American workplace, treasury, and our whole society in the decades to come.

This summary, read by the author, not only explains this seismic change, now in its early stages; it provides key insights and practical advice for Boomer employees and employers about to navigate this exciting, but unsettled, new frontier. Farrell is senior economics contributor at Marketplace, American Public Media’s nationally syndicated public radio business and personal finance programs. He is also economics commentator for Minnesota Public Radio, a contributing editor for Bloomberg Businessweek, and author of The New Frugality.

Drawing on Farrell's decades of covering personal finance and economics, this summary is an indispensable guide to the landscape of unretirement from one of America's most trusted experts.