When is it my turn to retire? That question represents both a distinct kind of horror and a certain luxury. Yes, one day you can simply stop and, even if you’re lucky enough not to be in instant need, as aging TomDispatch regular Rebecca Gordon vividly reminds us today (says 80-year-old Tom Engelhardt), you undoubtedly face a potential crisis. Once upon a time, I couldn’t even have imagined such a crisis. It was something that belonged to my grandparents’ or parents’ generation and was inconceivable to me. Now, for Rebecca and so many other older people, myself included, that crisis looms and the question in this society is: once your “value” is gone, not just what do you do, but what are you (if anything at all)?
And keep in mind that we’re in an — excuse me for using the word this way — age (or era, if you prefer) in which one of the two candidates for president (and I know you won’t have the slightest doubt which one I’m thinking of) has been talking about the possibility of cutting Social Security and Medicare retirement benefits for retirees. And why not, since they hardly matter anymore, right? I mean, who cares about how comfortable life might be for the people who are no longer in the workforce and may not, in their own lives, have much force at all? (Keep in mind that an estimated 50% of older workers have nothing in the bank for retirement!)
Of course, that same candidate has been denouncing Kamala Harris for mistreating Mike Pence. Yes, Mike Pence! (“The way she treated Mike Pence was horrible. The way she treats people is horrible.”) Uh, I wonder who actually treated former Vice President Pence horribly? I can’t imagine, but I do have the feeling that, under the circumstances, the candidate I’ve just been writing about might consider retiring. Otherwise, should he somehow win in 2024, we may all have to retire. Sigh… And while you’re waiting, let Gordon take you on a little retirement voyage of her own. Tom
A Personal Meditation on Growing Old
In a Catastrophic Age
The Washington Post headline reads: “A big problem for young workers: 70- and 80-year-olds who won’t retire.” For the first time in history, reports Aden Barton, five generations are competing in the same workforce. His article laments a “demographic traffic jam” at the apexes of various employment pyramids, making it ever harder for young people “to launch their careers and get promoted” in their chosen professions. In fact, actual professors (full-time and tenure-track ones, presumably, rather than part-timers like me) are Exhibit A in his analysis. “In academia, for instance," as he puts it, "young professionals now spend years in fellowships and postdoctoral programs waiting for professor jobs to open.”
I’ve written before about how this works in the academic world, describing college and graduate school education as a classic pyramid scheme. Those who got in early got the big payoff -- job security, a book-lined office, summers off, and a "sabbatical" every seven years (a concept rooted in the Jewish understanding of the sabbath as a holy time of rest). Those who came late to the party, however, have ended up in seemingly endless post-doctoral programs, if they’re lucky, and if not, as members of the part-time teaching corps.
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