Newsday™

Newsday™

CHANGE @ WORK; Many Retirees Lack Savings Grace
By Paricia Kitchen
06/16/2002

There's a whole herd of people headed for retirement - about 76 million baby boomers. Some are sitting pretty. Others are just sitting there with their eyes glazed over while they think about all the planning they haven't done.

Providing them with a snapshot of what's ahead was one goal of a phone survey of 1,000 people, age 55 and up, conducted last October and November by Harris Interactive and Ken Dychtwald, gerontologist and author of "Age Power: How the 21st Century Will Be Ruled by the New Old" (Tarcher, $13.95). Their findings? While that old-rocking-chair image of retirement is still favored by about one-fifth of the respondents, many more - almost half - see themselves more as active adventurers.

What's more, 95 percent of pre-retirees say they plan to keep right on working - gold watch or not. (A little more than one-fifth of respondents fell into the pre-retirement category.) The sad depreciation of so many 401(k)s surely plays a significant role here; still, half said they would work for little or no money.

Speaking of money, the research was funded by AIG SunAmerica, the retirement savings division of Manhattan-based insurance giant American International Group., which clearly has more than a passing interest in people's savings behavior.

"A new model is emerging," says Dychtwald, and it's replacing that old image of the life process, which he describes as: "You learn 20 years, you work 40 years, you lie in a hammock for 20 years." People are placing a good deal of value on reinvention and personal growth.

Here are the four retiree categories that emerged:

Ageless Explorers (27 percent) - Dynamic and engaged, these retirees in some ways are only partially retired. They're mixing periods of work, learning, leisure and community service. They are "those who love being in the game," says Dychtwald. When will they feel elderly? "Never," they say. And little wonder they have such optimism. They have the highest education level (more than half attended college or beyond) and net worth (an average of $469,800), plus they're the ones who have been saving for the longest, an average of 24 years. (But don't fool yourself, he says. It's not just money - it's also having "taken time to think through who they wanted to become.")

The Comfortably Content (19 percent) - This is the more traditional set, those who waved goodbye to the workplace and whose goal is to have no goal, beyond travel and recreation. They're close to the explorers in education level and net worth, having saved on average of 23 years.

The Live-for-Todays (22 percent) - These folks look a lot like the explorers except for one big thing: All that living for today has kept them from saving for tomorrow, so they've socked away money for an average of just 18 years. They're the ones, says Dychtwald, who "go to bed worried," and are likely to be working not just for the fun of it. (Oops. This looks like my group. You can see which you fit into - if it isn't already obvious - by taking a quiz at www.visualize-retirement.com.)

The Sick-and-Tireds (32 percent) - There's nothing funny to say about this crowd. On average, they're the last ones you'll find traveling, visiting family or doing community work, though surely there are exceptions. They also are the least educated, have the lowest net worth - and have saved on average for only 16 years. In about half the cases, says Dychtwald, they were headed for a much rosier picture, then got waylaid by a serious illness or the death of a spouse (one-third are widows). "They are not living a dream; they're living a nightmare," he says.

Despite these neat-sounding categories, Manhattan executive recruiter Jeri Sedlar prefers to see people as individuals, all capable of "rewiring" themselves in different ways as retirement approaches. "I don't care what people rewire themselves into, as long as it fills their own needs." That's the point of the new book she co-authored, "Don't Retire, REWIRE" (due in September from Alpha, $18.95.)

She's not surprised to hear of retirees' interests in staying active. "We're a nation of doers," she says. In fact, she warns against what she calls "competitive retirement," which will find some Type A's trying to outdo one another in the number and prestige of the boards they serve on, the committees they chair, the months they spend in Italy. Some people will go right on "keeping score," she says. And what's important for those who worry about keeping up is to "know yourself and do only the things that fulfill you."

Hers is just one of several recent titles on the subject that may make for fertile reading. Others include:

"Rewired, Rehired, or Retired? A Global Guide for the Experienced Worker," by Robert K. Critchley (Jossey-Bass, 17.95.)

"The Third Act: Reinventing Yourself After Retirement," by Edgar M. Bronfman with Catherine Whitney (Putnam, $25.95.)

And, I think that won't be the last of them, given the numbers of people facing this next phase of work and life.