Boomers embracing phased-in retirement

By Mindy Fetterman
USA Today

re-tire v.: 1. to go away, retreat, or withdraw ...

That might be Webster's definition, but as the first of America's 79 million baby boomers reach age 62 in 2008, they are going to change the meaning of the word.

Boomers are likely to continue working, either part time or full time, as consultants or by setting up their own companies, surveys show. They want a "flexible" workplace that lets them take extended sabbaticals, then work intensely for shorter periods of time. They want to "phase in" retirement by working fewer hours as they near 65, or after. They might change careers, go back to school, volunteer. They're not quite sure yet.

"I work very hard, and would I like a few years off? Yes," says Ken Dychtwald, 55, a psychologist and gerontologist. "But would I love to never work again? No, that's not my dream. And it's not the dream of our generation."

In a 2001 survey of boomers, 80 percent said they were planning to work past 65, at least part time, according to AARP.

Ronald Thompson of Palos Verdes Estates, Calif., spent nearly 40 years working for The Aerospace Corp., a nonprofit company that supports the Defense Department's space program. He retired in July 2002. One month later, he was back.

He's part of a "casual retiree" program at the company and now works about 1,000 hours, or half a year. "I thought I'd have been playing golf or fishing or doing some hiking now," he laughs.

Joyce Montgomery of Detroit retired from her job as a counselor at a children's home a couple of years ago when her husband retired. "We traveled a little bit, but I got tired of sitting around," she says.

She applied at CVS Pharmacy for part-time work. She was thinking 10, maybe 15, hours a week. Now, she works full time.

Montgomery and Thompson are part of what Dychtwald, author of "Age Power: How the 21st Century Will Be Ruled by the New Old," calls the "guinea pig generation." They're testing out phased-in retirement and phased-back-in working lives in advance of the big wave behind them.

"It's like in exploration; the scouts see it first. They may fall off the cliffs, but we're getting to see them experiment with retirement," he says. "We boomers have an advantage."