Meaningful Work, Paid or Unpaid, Through the Last Breath by Jan Hively

In this issue…

Paid or Unpaid, Through the Last Breath...

Guest editor, Janet M. Hively, Ph.D., founded the Minnesota Vital Aging Network and is the co-founder of a new organization, SHiFT, “empowering midlife moves to meaning in life and work.” Her career has also included school and community planning, administration, and outreach for public and non-profit organizations. What all of her efforts have in common is that they are based on the philosophy that communities and systems need to look at life through a new paradigm consistent with planning for personal growth all the way through life.

In this consumer society, we think about “work” as what people are paid for that generates goods and services for the marketplace. So “retirement” brings an end to “work.” The unpaid contributions of activities such as parenting, volunteering, and caregiving are not counted or appreciated. This bias favoring paid work negates the value of homemakers and students, and most of all, older adults.

It’s time for us to create a new paradigm for the second journey that fosters personal growth through meaningful work all the way through life. We’ve all heard a retiree say, “Work was my life, and now I have no life.” Recent research shows that negative perceptions about aging like this actually reduce longevity (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 83, No. 2). Older adults involved in meaningful work are healthier and more satisfied with life than others.

What is “meaningful work”? Whether paid or unpaid, “work” is your productivity that benefits you and/or your family and/or your employer and/or your community. You tend to see your work as “meaningful” when you are applying your skills in a focused effort to produce what you perceive to be beneficial results. What taps your special passion will be most meaningful. What stimulates new learning, for example, is most meaningful to me. For all of us, as David Whyte writes, “work provides an opportunity for discovering and shaping a place where the self meets the world.”

Why is this so important? In recent years, the primary motivation for paid work in retirement has been to find challenge and fulfillment rather than income. Changing economic conditions, however, are encouraging continued employment. The responsibility for funding retirement savings has shifted from the employer to the employee. This shift plus increased employee mobility due to downsizing and dislocation, having families later in life, and market pressures to spend more have resulted in a drop in the rate and percent of retirement savings. Uncertainty about the future of health care and Social Security benefits, added to their lack of savings, lead many mid-career adults to say that they expect to work for pay all their lives! Overall, more than two-thirds of Boomers told an AARP survey in 2003 that they plan to work for pay “beyond traditional retirement age.”

Community vitality will require more older adult productivity, whether paid or unpaid. The generational shift caused by 76 million baby boomers coming into retirement age this decade and next, with only 45 million younger adults in the pipeline to take their places, will create a talent shortage in the workplace. More volunteers will be needed by non-profit and public agencies strapped for resources. More advocates and caregivers for the elderly will be needed with the increased push for “aging in place” along with the dropping percentage of older adults with children to care for them.

The great news is that our society’s expanding need for lifelong learning and productivity is matched by the capacity of older adults! Author Gene Cohen, in his new book, The Mature Mind, highlights exciting new research that shows that brain cells regenerate, in comparison with other body cells. Changes in the brain foster integrative thinking and creative energy in mid-life and beyond. The rate of disability has dropped, and new technologies have extended the capacity for community participation lifelong.

The challenge is to connect capacity with value through vocation. “Vocation is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet,” said Friedrich Buechner. How can we challenge traditional expectations, eliminate barriers to ongoing productivity, and create new opportunities for meaningful work, paid or unpaid, through the last breath?