Men Still at Work: Professionals Over Sixty and on the Job (2 page)

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Perspectives on Aging and Work

Quarante ans, c’est la vieillesse de la jeunesse, mais cinquante ans, c’est la jeunesse de la vieillesse.
[Forty years is the old age of youth, but fifty years, it is the youth of old age.]—Victor Hugo

Census data indicate that the US population is growing bigger, older, and more racially and ethnically diverse.
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The population age sixty-five and older is singled out for the fastest increase as a percentage of the total US population during the one hundred years from 1950 to 2050 (projected): 8.1 percent of the total in 1950, 12.8 percent in 2009, and 20.2 percent in 2050. Based on projections, one out of every five persons (or 88.5 million) will be sixty-five or older in 2050.
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Ten years later, this age group will total 92 million, and for the first time ever, will outnumber people younger than eighteen in the United States.
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At a recent meeting organized by the Economic Development Authority of Fairfax County, Virginia, the head of the Chamber of Commerce described the demographic shift to an older workforce as the “Silver Tsunami.”
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Another speaker at that meeting, John Martin, author of
Boomer Consumer
, noted that the traditional population “age pyramid” featuring youth at the wide bottom and elders at the narrow peak is turning into an “age rectangle” with nearly equal numbers distributed at the young, middle, and older levels. In the relatively brief period from December 2007 to March 2012, an increase of 14 percent in the fifty-five and older population (from 69.6 million to 79.5 million) occurred.
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Economists and gerontologists are watching these demographic shifts closely, as are business leaders, human resources managers, financial advisors, insurance companies, government officials, journalists, ad agencies, and others.

Figure 2.1 shows the growth of the population age sixty-five and over and age eighty-five and over from 1900 to 2010 and their projected growth from 2020 to 2050.
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Figure 2.1

Number of Older Americans

Source
: US Census Bureau, 1900–1940, 1970, and 1980, US Census Bureau, 1983, Table 42; 1950, US Census Bureau, 1953, Table 38; 1960, US Census Bureau, 1964, Table 155; 1990, US Census Bureau, 1991, 1990 Summary Table File; 2000, US Census Bureau, 2001,
Census 2000 Summary File 1
; US Census Bureau, Table 1: Intercensal Estimates of the Resident Population by Sex and Age for the US; April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2010 (US-EST00INT-01); US Census Bureau, 2011,
2010 Census Summary File 1
; US Census Bureau, Table 2: Projections of the Population by Selected Age Groups and Sex for the United States: 2010–2050 (NP2008-t2).

However, it seems to me that the shape of the population distribution one draws depends on how one defines and views aging and the “older” person. A recent MetLife study of baby boomers determined that men consider themselves old at seventy-seven on average and women say they are not old until eighty.
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To confuse matters, it has become a cliché to say eighty is the new seventy, seventy is the new sixty, sixty is the new fifty, and so on. Plenty of evidence supports that claim—seniors enjoying greater health, longevity, well-being, and vigor—yet for researchers it lacks precision. Fortunately, economists and other researchers at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics have a sure grasp of demographic changes, but even they categorize “older” workers as sixty-five in some reports and fifty-five and up in others.

Employers are known to acknowledge that older workers can make good employees and still refuse to hire them. Opinions regarding the desirability of hiring older workers run the gamut. At one end of the opinion spectrum lie negative stereotypes:

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Older workers are considered less productive and more expensive.

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They are resistant to change.

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Their skills and knowledge are not cutting edge.

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If not outright Luddites, they cannot get the hang of new technologies.

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Hiring and training them is a waste of time and money because they will have costly health problems or decide to quit.

Toward the other end of the opinion spectrum are the superlatives about older workers:

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They bring valuable skills, expertise, and experience to the workplace.

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They are known for reliability: consistent day-to-day performance, low absenteeism, and commitment to the job.

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They are conscientious and display good work habits, such as thoroughness and a low error rate.

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Their maturity sets an example for younger workers.

Employees of the Vita Needle Factory have plenty of each quality on the list of superlatives. At Vita, founded in 1932 in Needham, Massachusetts, and run today by the fourth generation of the same family, the median age of employees is seventy-four. About half are over sixty-five and most are part-timers. Vita employs about forty-nine men and women in production, packaging, and shipping of reusable and disposable stainless steel needles, syringes, tubing, wire, and custom-fabricated parts for industry and retail. Having worked for years at other jobs, they bring knowledge, skills, experience, and an outstanding work ethic.

As reported this year by Paul Solman for the
PBS
NewsHour
, the oldest member of Vita’s geriatric labor force is one-hundred-year-old Rosa Finnegan, a retired waitress who has worked at Vita for sixteen years. Next oldest is Bill Ferson, age ninety-four, who originally thought he would work at Vita for five or six months, and that was twenty-four years ago. Workers interviewed by Solman say they are not there for the money so much as for the camaraderie among coworkers and knowing they are being of use. Bill Ferson says it keeps his “upstairs” going. Many of his friends have passed away or are in tough shape, and he doesn’t want to get that way. Because of Vita’s “unique model for doing business,” Solman observes, “age discrimination means the older the better.”
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When pondering attitudes about older men and women in relationship to work, it is interesting to compare contemporary thinking with notions that were widely accepted nearly half a century ago. For example, we can go back to October 19, 1970, when anthropologist Margaret Mead spoke at the Community Forum on Social Change in Framingham, Massachusetts. Her topic, “Marriage in an Age of Social Change,” elicited a host of questions from the audience on gender roles and behavioral differences. The original tapes (now CDs) of her presentation reveal that some of her observations were lighthearted and most were absolutely serious.

In the question-and-answer portion of the program, Dr. Mead compared the behavior of older men and women, “older” to her meaning
fifty
years of age. She observed, for example, that most men have gone as far as they can go by the time they reach fifty. Aside from a handful of older men who continue career building to the highest positions, the average man who is a second vice president is stuck at that level and a man who is the principal of a small high school is not going to run the New York City schools. A fifty-year-old man may work another fifteen years, then he will retire to a life of quiet and fishing. Just at that moment, his fifty-year-old wife is full of beans and she isn’t fit to have around the house. She has postmenopausal zest and is looking forward to the best years of her active life. This can be the time when her husband replaces her with a new, typically younger wife. (I am not sure whether Dr. Mead meant that to be funny or serious.) According to Dr. Mead, a compensatory factor has been around since primitive times. A great invention of human biology makes it possible for men to father children after fifty but prevents women from further childbearing. What made this arrangement fair, at least historically, is that it saved women’s lives and kept them around to help the family and tell people where their forebears found food during a famine in earlier times. There was no way to save men; they, unfortunately, drowned when they went over the reef or were clawed to death by a lion, as Dr. Mead tells it.

Thirty-five years ago, David Hackett Fischer’s
Growing Old in America
provided a comprehensive history of aging in America.
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In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, life expectancy was much shorter and people often had to labor into old age, most working until they were worn out. By the early twentieth century, Americans began to think of old age in a new way. Fischer cites a 1903
Cosmopolitan
magazine article by Edward Everett Hale (then in his eighties and still working as chaplain to the US Senate) worrying that there was “no place in our working order for older men.” Forced retirement had become common. Children were supposed to support aged parents. Hale drew attention to the plight of poor elderly, and following the recession of 1908, awareness of their plight began to grow. Fischer tells us that 1909 saw the first public commission on aging appointed in Massachusetts, the first federal old age pension bill proposed in Washington, and a new discipline named “geriatrics” invented in New York City; 1915 saw the first state old age pension system established in Arizona; 1935 saw enactment of the Social Security system; and 1965 brought the Older Americans Act to provide social services, as well as the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Fischer acknowledges that the majority of Americans dislike their jobs and retire as soon as they can. “For others,” he says “the right to work is central to life itself.” Thus, in his view, forced retirement at age sixty-five is arbitrary; a person should be judged according to individual merit and competence, not the chronological age group to which he belongs; and he should be free to choose whether to work or not.

Also appearing in the mid-1970s was
Why Survive? Being Old in America
, written by Robert N. Butler, the inaugural director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA), as an exposé and critique. Like Edward Everett Hale nearly three-quarters of a century before him, Butler decries the denial of work to older people who need to earn a living and who derive satisfaction and a sense of purpose from work, as well as the associated loss to society of their skills, knowledge, insights, and experience.
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More recent books pick up the thread of the argument. Shea and Haasen’s
The Older Worker Advantage
describes older workers as a valuable resource whose capabilities and talents are increasingly important to workplaces and society.
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Since, as they say, we are increasingly dependent on older workers to produce for, and help manage, our society, we should reject false assumptions about older workers that are merely “insulting myths” and “damaging stereotypes.”

Helen Harkness, too, disputes the myths of aging, particularly “the myth that growing up means running down,” “the myth of the shrinking brain,” and “the myth of wilting originality,” especially as they apply to the “career clock.”
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To Harkness, elderly means age ninety and older, but she prefers to focus on
functional age
, not chronology. Functional age “combines and integrates the biological, social, and psychological measures into one active package,” and focuses instead on how well we “act, perform, execute, move, think, feel” in our various roles. “For a full life,” she concludes, “aging and working are tied together.”

False assumptions and myths about aging bring to mind what happened to my mother, a psychotherapist of high intelligence and zest for life, when she became very ill on a trip around the world. The ship’s medical officer suspected the worst and advised her to fly home from Hong Kong immediately. Upon her return, she went to her local doctor, who examined her and said dismissively, “You’re eighty-six. What do you expect?” (Fortunately, I scheduled an appointment for her at Massachusetts General Hospital where she was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer and treated. She benefited from most of the chemotherapy she and her doctor were willing to try and lived another two and a half years.)

Whether depicted in a disparaging or a flattering light, the senior years have been receiving greater attention of late. Popular designations are “Prime Time,” “The Second Half,” “The Third Chapter,” and “The Third Age.” Often authors use such terms to refer to activities following exit from one’s career job.
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Marc Freedman urges men and women to transform what it means to age by dedicating their “prime time” to civic engagement and volunteering, thus balancing personal fulfillment with responsibility to others.
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One “encore careerist” friend fits the bill perfectly. After a career as a chemical engineer at Polaroid, Fred Wallace taught chemistry part time at Framingham State University for several years until vision problems made him give up lab work. He then revved up his longtime interest in and talent for genealogy and local history and became the (unpaid) town historian and author of a book about a Civil War general from Framingham.