The New Retirement Survey: Highlights

  • The new retirement "turning point." While 76% of baby boomers intend to keep working and earning in retirement, on average they expect to "retire" from their current job/career at around age 64, and then launch into an entirely new job or career.

  • Taking advantage of their "longevity bonus," baby boomers will create a whole new life stage. Since the time that Social Security established the "normal" retirement age at 65, life expectancy for a 65-year-old has increased by over seven years and continues to lengthen.

  • Baby boomers reject a life of either full-time leisure or full-time work. When asked about their ideal work arrangement in retirement, the most common choices among baby boomers in the survey would be to:

    • Repeatedly "cycle" between periods of work and leisure (42%)

    • Have part-time work (16%)

    • Start their own business (13%)

    • Work full time (6%)

    • It's not about the money. While 37% of the baby boomers in the survey indicate that continued earnings is a very important part of the reason they intend to keep working, 67% assert that continued mental stimulation and challenge is what will motivate them to stay in the game.

  • The transformation of the "me" generation into the "we" generation. The "me" generation has grown up - now with deep concerns for the well-being of their children, their parents and their communities.

  • The unpredictable cost of illness and healthcare is by far baby boomers' biggest fear. They are three times more worried about a major illness (48%), their ability to pay for healthcare (53%) or winding up in a nursing home (48%), than about dying (17%).

  • Baby boomer women are better educated, more independent, are simultaneously juggling more work and family responsibilities and are more financially engaged than any generation in history. According to the survey, married baby boomer women are more than six times more likely to share responsibility for savings and investments compared to their mothers' generation (33% now vs. 5% then).

  • Baby boomer women are dreaming of retiring to Mars while baby boomer men hope to retire to Venus. Baby boomer men are looking forward to working less, relaxing more, and spending more time with their spouse. Baby boomer women view the dual liberations of empty nesting and retirement as providing new opportunities for career development, community involvement and continued personal growth.

  • Financial preparedness is the gateway to retirement freedom and the antidote to retirement phobia. Accumulating the resources baby boomers believe they need for retirement freedom (81%), rather than age (56%) or any other variable, was cited as the most decisive factor for when they choose to retire.

  • One size does not fit all. When it comes to retirement dreams and preparedness, the survey found that there are five distinct and different baby boomer groups: Empowered Trailblazers, Wealth-Builders, Leisure Lifers, Anxious Idealists, and the Stretched and Stressed. The survey followed each group to determine how they are faring and what their plans are to meet their retirement goals.