Saturday, 23 August 2008

Looking to the future

DOne of the thoughts that really got me thinking today was the following provocative comment I found on The DaVinci Institute's website:
"People who live to be 65 today in the United States live an average of an additional 18 years. Over the first two decades of the 21st Century, because of advances in health care, nutrition, exercise, wealth, and biotechnologies of various kinds, this average will increase toward 30 years, then 40 years after age 65. How will we reinvent the third phase of life now called retirement?" - Glen Hiemstra -Futurist.Com
What a fascinating question for us all to ponder. We can already see the trend that many people are working well after their 65th birthday. Soon governments will not be giving retirement pensions to anyone younger than seventy - we will all still be working at this age. For some this may be working part time, or having a portfolio of jobs to keep us interested, and to give back to society. Even the wealthy will not retire, but choose to occupy their time in a range of different ways.
Will retirement exist? Maybe we should remove the word from our vocabulary all together.