{"id":23505,"date":"2018-01-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ceric.org\/2018\/01\/is-it-time-to-put-retirement-out-to-pasture\/"},"modified":"2018-01-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-08T05:00:00","slug":"is-it-time-to-put-retirement-out-to-pasture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ceric.ca\/fr\/2018\/01\/is-it-time-to-put-retirement-out-to-pasture\/","title":{"rendered":"Is It Time to Put Retirement Out to Pasture?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As career development practitioners, we can become leaders in countering the negative effects of the aging mindset that permeates our culture<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

By <\/em>Elizabeth<\/em> Mahler and John Thompson<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Like most people in our culture, career development practitioners are subject to the influence of commonly held ideas. To illustrate, we offer the following quiz.<\/p>\n

A woman pays a visit to a career counsellor and provides the following information: she recently left a position and is now technically unemployed; she\u2019s in good health with plenty of energy; she believes she has another 20 years of work in her, but would prefer employment that is both less physically demanding and more meaningful; and she senses that she has a unique chance to do something different, but doesn\u2019t know what that is, or how to find out. Consequently, she is feeling discouraged.<\/p>\n

Which of the following statements is most likely to be true about this person?<\/p>\n

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  1. The client is 40 years old and was recently laid off.<\/li>\n
  2. The client is 50 years old and recently quit her job after being diagnosed with a neurological disease that will begin to seriously affect her in about twenty years.<\/li>\n
  3. The client is 60 years old.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If you share our culture\u2019s aging mindset, we assume that you have chosen answer #1 or #2. We don\u2019t expect people who are 60 years of age to be looking for guidance around the next 20 years of their working lives. We expect them to be thinking about retirement<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    This 60-year-old woman can be said to be in a state of transition, but transition from what to what? Our culture provides developmental roadmaps for younger people, but there are few mainstream models of growth and development offered to those over 60. This made sense when life spans were shorter, but changing demographics call this thinking into question.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    The results of an increasing life expectancy<\/strong><\/p>\n

    A recent report from Statistics Canada (Decady & Greenberg, 2014) details the increase in the life expectancy of Canada\u2019s population over the past century:<\/p>\n