this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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Work Reform

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Traditionally, retiring entails leaving the workforce permanently. However, experts found that the very definition of retirement is also changing between generations.

About 41% of Gen Z and 44% of millennials — those who are currently between 27 and 42 years old — are significantly more likely to want to do some form of paid work during retirement.

...

This increasing preference for a lifelong income, could perhaps make the act of “retiring” obsolete.

Although younger workers don’t intend to stop working, there is still an effort to beef up their retirement savings.

It's ok! Don't ever retire! Just work until you die, preferably not at work, where we'd have to deal with the removal of your corpse.

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[–] geeuurge@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I disagree with the editorialising from the title comment. To me it doesn't seem to celebrate or even opine anything, and that's actually kind of frustrating, because it's obviously bad that people are intending to work longer, regardless of their actual preferences.

Having read the article, to me it's not entirely obvious whether people feel that (A) they don't have enough to save regardless of their intentions (B) they feel saving for retirement is futile for whatever reason, or (C) even if they had extra money, they would prefer to spend the extra on here and now.

The article kind of hints that it's more B or C than A, but it isn't really explicit, and I think that would be the really interesting part of this story to report.

You're right. I was angry when I posted this, and couldn't help but read glee in the repeated ways they described generations of people who are on track to simply never be able to save up for a comfortable retirement.

It does feel hopeless, though. I love my job and earn a decent wage, but if I had the money to retire, I'd do it today. I definitely don't want to work until I drop.

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think there is also inflation fear and a understandably low desire to try and save/invest. I know a few people that just had to start working again because the money they had coming in for retirement was not enough for what they thought was their lowest acceptable standard of living.

Its not hard to see with inflation above return on most safe investment vehicles (GICs paying 4.5% max with inflation at 5%) that people don't see the point.

[–] orrk@lemmy.world -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it's mathematically impossible for any long term investment vehicle to payout more than inflation, unless you get lucky and happen to hit the Apple stock.

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

Sorry but by that logic there is no point in any investment mechanism. Historically GIC rates have been the oposite of what you claim https://www.ratehub.ca/blog/the-history-of-gic-rates/ . For example in 1995 GICs paid 7.1% vs the inflation rate of 1.7%.

I think the odd position that it is "mathematically" impossible to have any expectation of return is indicative of our messed up system.

[–] Theharpyeagle@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't know, this article seems horribly out of touch. I mean you have the opinions of Intuit, who feed on your tax return, and Blackrock, the company often cited as the reason Millennials and Gen Z will never own a house. They have a vested interest in keeping people paying income tax and taking out loans.

[–] geeuurge@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I agree the article seems very out of touch, and the reason I think is because it reports this in a very neutral way. If it made clear that the author thought this was a bad thing that was happening, would you still think it was out of touch?

[–] Theharpyeagle@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I believe it's out of touch not because they didn't come to the conclusion I wanted them to, but because they cite the opinions and data curated by tax and investment companies at face value instead of actually asking responders why they answered the way they did. Who is Blackrock to say what young people want to do? Hell, Blackrock garners disdain from both sides of the aisle, would millennials and Gen Z really pick them as a representative of their wants and needs?

[–] CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I agree the article seems very out of touch, and the reason I think is because it reports this in a very neutral way.

To me it didn't seem neutral, it seemed to imply a sense of laziness and wanting luxury over hard work from the newer generation.

[–] drphungky@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So glad someone else read the article. I really thought we'd escape clickbait like this post on Lemmy, but there's so much rage people are up voting this stuff and commenting how horrible it is based on the false title, not the actual article which is freaking survey results.

Like yes things are bad, but these results could have printed about any generation at any time post 1940s (advent of the concept of young adulthood) as long as they were all under 25.

Three in four Gen Z would rather have a better quality of life than extra money in their banks, the Intuit report shows.

This just in - young people thinking on shorter time horizons, bad at planning for future. More in tomorrow's newspaper dated any time in the last hundred years or so.