A New Paradigm Is Needed for Retiring Boomers
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
At a gathering at its headquarters in the World Financial Center, Merrill Lynch yesterday presented the findings of a new survey of the baby boomers’ attitudes toward retirement. As an international financial manager and adviser with approximately $1.6 trillion in client assets, Merrill Lynch views prospective and recent retirees as an important pool of potential clients.
“The New Retirement Survey,” which appears to contradict the prevalent doom-and-gloom view of retirement readiness, was conducted for Merrill Lynch by Harris Interactive, a global market research firm known for the Harris Poll, in collaboration with Age Wave, a company that develops products and services for aging populations.
The survey included a total of 3,448 U.S. adults between the ages of 40 and 58 in two samples. A sample of 2,348 participants represented the general population, while a second sample of 1,100 participants represented affluent baby boomers, with ‘affluent’ being defined as either having incomes of $100,000 or more, or assets of at least $500,000.
According to the gerontologist Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., president and CEO of Age Wave, the survey reveals that baby boomers approach retirement in unexpectedly complex ways and appear to be creating a new retirement model. Only 17% plan traditional retirement at 65 – and the survey suggests that they are likely to face problems in funding their golden years-while a majority would opt for ‘cycling’ between work and leisure in retirement. A combination of work and leisure past 65 would mean more time to accumulate retirement assets, fewer years of drawing them down, and more compounding returns. When boomers were young, they were referred to as the “me” generation, but the survey finds the opposite to be the case. Boomers today are four times more likely to “put others first.”
Women boomers are better educated and more independent than ever before, with married women six times more likely than their mothers to share responsibility for financial decisions in the family. Perhaps surprisingly, they view retirement as a new opportunity for career and personal development.
