Blog » Working ‘Til We Drop: Baby Boomers And Retirement

The recent government announcement, that the retirement age would increase came as a ‘ho hum’ moment to me and probably to many other baby boom women in the work force. Like many women my age (mid-50’s) I find myself with very little superannuation for

The statistics have been indicating for many years that a larger number of us as we age, are working into our more mature years, and will continue to do so. After all, boomer women were at the forefront of the women’s liberation movement, and we saw employment as the way forward, the key to our liberation from the kitchen, and the roles our mothers had established for themselves, as homemakers.

Back then, we got jobs, we didn’t take on careers. In the 60’s and 70’s, there were plenty of jobs, even if they were confined to certain industries, eg. nursing, secretarial, teaching, retail, etc. Often our first job was chosen by our parents. Perhaps that’s why we treated jobs like disposable commodities, that we could just pick up and cast off like a pair of shoes. We’d hold down a job until it got too boring, or until we’d saved up enough for the next travel adventure. Then we’d quit, only to pick up the next one when we needed it.

We worked and didn’t look forward into our futures. We didn’t save or plan for retirement. If we married, we generally spent all our money on our houses and the kids. Where our parents squeezed a family into a 3 bedroom house with one bathroom, we wanted bigger houses, with all the ‘mod cons’ even swimming pools and ‘rumpus rooms’. Growing up, our rumpus room was the whole of outdoors. Not only did we provide comfortable accommodation for our children, many of us worked hard to educate them at great expense.

For some of us, we continue to ‘help out’ our children financially, and sometimes we get the money back, but sometimes we don’t. Where our parents charged us board to live at home, and loaned us money to buy our first car, we let our kids stay at home until they felt like leaving, and probably bought them their first car, or let them use ours, leaving it with no petrol, and in need of a service when they’d finished with it. Gen X children see their parents as walking wallets.

So now that we are rapidly coming to retirement age, we are finding that rather than working less hours, some of us are actually working more. Boomers generally are poor savers and great consumers, and lack financial planning for the future (Henry, 2007) . Our Veteran mothers were happy to retire on a small income, choosing to ‘perm’ or coif their own hair (which usually involved sleeping in rollers… aargh!) paint their own nails, make their own clothes, knit, sew, and cook. My mum could feed 10 people with a couple of pounds of flour and a pound of lard… suet dumplings, remember them, filling and warming, with lashings of Golden Syrup. Some things are just better left in the past.

The only consolation for us as we work ourselves into retirement is that we love it. We love to work, it gives us something to do when we get up in the morning. It provides us, not only with an income, but also with mental stimulation and enjoyment. Because, let’s face it, once the kids leave home, what else is there for us to do? There have been so many years in between when we’ve been working mothers, that now just holding down a job is a piece of cake.

Gen X and Gen Y had better get used to having us around in the workforce for a long time to come, because we’re not going anywhere.

Be the first to comment!

Posting comments on blogs is currently restricted to Friends of Ask Her.

Friends of Ask Her Login         Join Now! It's free membership   Forgot password?

Our blogs are enabled.
A Gravatar is a Globally Recognised Avatar image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums, so why not on any site?
If you would like to have one, visit Gravatar.