Debbi's note: The baby boomer market is a huge market for home based business opportunities or any type of home business. Because so many home based business opportunities are viable with just part-time hours, it meshes perfectly with the lifestyle boomer's want in retirement. (highlights in red are mine).
Merrill Lynch's "The New Retirement Survey" Reveals How Baby Boomers Will Transform Retirement
THE RETIREMENT MOST BOOMERS ENVISION IS ACHIEVABLE YET STANDARD RETIREMENT PLANNING MODELS FAIL TO CAPTURE THE COMPLEXITY OF BOOMERS' ACTUAL PLANS AND ASPIRATIONS
The New Retirement Survey offers a complex and illuminating preview of the kind of lifestyles, workstyles and recreation activities that boomers envision for their future. With guidance from noted gerontologist and author Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., it offers unparalleled insight into the hopes, fears and motivations of this influential generation, as well as the coming impact on retirement, work, recreation, marriage, family, healthcare, housing, entitlements and the economy. Highlights include:
- The new retirement "turning point." While 76% of boomers intend to keep working and earning in retirement, on average they expect to "retire" from their current job/career at around 64 and then launch into an entirely new job or career.
- Taking advantage of their "longevity bonus," boomers will create a whole new life stage. Since 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. As a result of living longer, this generation plans to be "younger" longer and work longer. Most boomers (65%) will stop working for pay and retire in the traditional sense at some point. However, that phase is more likely to begin in the late 60's, than at age 60 or 65.
- Boomers reject a life of either full-time leisure or full-time work. When probed about their ideal work arrangement in retirement, the most common choice among boomers would be to repeatedly "cycle" between periods of work and leisure (42%), followed by part-time work (16%), start their own business (13%) and full-time work (6%). Only 17% hope to never work for pay again.
- It's not about the money. While 37% of the boomer generation 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. Boomers are now 10 times more likely to "put others first" (43%) than "put themselves first" (4%).
- Boomer women are dreaming of retiring to Mars while boomer men hope to retire to Venus. Boomer men are looking forward to working less, relaxing more, and spending more time with their spouse. While 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 retirementphobia. Accumulating the resources 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. And, recognizing the growing uncertainty of government entitlements, boomers who have a plan and feel prepared are twice as optimistic and far less fearful compared with those who do not.
- One size doesn't fit all. When it comes to retirement dreams and preparedness, there are five distinct and different boomer segments: the "Empowered Trailblazers," the "Wealth-Builders," the "Leisure Lifers," the "Anxious Idealists" and the "Stretched and Stressed." The survey revealed how each group is doing, their plans and ambitions for later life, their level of financial preparedness and how they intend to fund their future dreams.
