Baby Boomer Hoping for Better Employment in Later Years

Dear Ellie:

I am a healthy 54-year-old male and have been the executive director of a nonprofit organization in my professional field of interest for 10 years. It is likely that I could stay in my position for as long as I wish. But as I head into my 60s and assess our economy, our lengthening lives, and the future, I anticipate that I will want and need to work well into my 70s, and maybe beyond.

I would not want to stay in this same job for 15 or 20 more years. I’ve been thinking about teaching at the university level as my next career. If I want to do that, I’ll need a PhD. Can you give me some guidance about returning to school at my age and about positioning myself to have another career at this point in my life? Don

Dear Don:

I have been hearing from and talking to many baby boomers like you. As our economy worsens, they intend to stay in their jobs as long as they can, even though many say they might like to do something else. Preserving regular income, health insurance, and retirement benefits are their current priorities. But as they head into their 60s, they also anticipate becoming bored and restless with their current jobs and maybe with their entire careers.

As the life cycle progresses, the decade of our 50s is often a restless time. I and my two male co-authors wrote about this phenomenon in our book, In Our Fifties: Men and Women Reinventing Their Lives (William Bergquist, Elinor Miller Greenberg, and Alan Klaum, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1993). What we found then, and is still true, is that the 50s decade is a “transition decade.” That means that people in their 50s tend to reexamine what they have been doing in their personal and professional adult lives—which often hasn’t changed much since they entered their adult years.

When a transition begins, people begin to have a sense of “diffusion”—that is, what has been comfortable for a long time begins to seem diffuse. They can’t put their finger on what’s causing them to feel increasingly uncomfortable, but there’s no denying the feeling.

Next, they move into a period of “dissonance.” From a state of fitting in with their environment—their marriage, their employment, their friendships—they begin to feel dissatisfied. Some contemplate divorce. Some want to move to another community, maybe even another part of the country. Some start to consider changing jobs or entire careers.

Then “differentiation” begins to occur. The 50-something person in transition begins to be able to identify which part of life is causing the discomfort and starts to take action in that area. It sounds to me like you are in this stage of transition. You are focusing on your career, anticipating growing older, and trying to collect information about various career options so that, in a few years, you can be prepared to make some changes in your work environment. Teaching at the university level is one of your alternatives, and you have correctly concluded that you would probably need a doctoral degree in order to be qualified to do that and to be competitive in the academic job market.

I must tell you that this period in your transition may last quite a while. It could take you a number of months, even a few years, to investigate all the aspects of university-level teaching, especially if you were to begin that career in your 60s. It will also take time to learn how to go about finding a doctoral program that would meet your needs. So, don’t be impatient with yourself. You have set a lofty and complex goal for yourself.

When you get to the final stage of transition, “coherence,” you will be on a path toward your new work environment. This coherence stage might last for many years, for example, all through your doctoral program. That would bring you well into your 60s. Then other decisions will need to be made, such as: When should I retire from my regular job? When will I be ready to take Social Security? When do I want to start Medicare? Will my wife, who is almost the same age as I am, still be working? Then another transition period will begin, and you will go through the same four steps of transition in your 60s that you did in your 50s, which got you to this place. Only the content of the next set of questions will be different.

I am answering your questions first by describing the transition process because I believe that if you understand the four steps of transition, you will be better prepared to make good choices and give yourself adequate time to find the information you need to do so.

I’m convinced that you are experiencing issues typical of the 50s decade. You are doing the right thing by anticipating living a long and healthy life and preparing for a productive work life for many years to come. I commend you, as a boomer, for confronting these issues head-on. I wish all the 78 million American baby boomers, now in their late 40s and 50s, would pursue these issues early enough in their lives so that the “third third” of their lives, from age 60 to whenever, will be both productive and satisfying.

I’ll address some of the other issues you have raised in another blog. For example, I plan to write about how older adults might approach the issue of returning to school for a graduate degree. I suspect that many of our readers will be interested in this topic. Recent research on the boomer population has shown that the three areas that boomers are most concerned about are work, learning, and volunteer service. We’ll address them all. So, thanks for asking. Ellie

Source:

Tarule, J. M. The process of transformation. In Educating Learners of All Ages, New Directions for Higher Education, no. 29, ed. Elinor Miller Greenberg, Kathleen O’Donnell, and William Bergquist. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1980.

By Elinor Miller Greenberg, EdD

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