40
ILLUSTRATION BY INKEE WANG. DATA: BLS; U.S. CENSUSTHE BOTTOM LINE Growing numbers of baby boomers, who don’t want to
be isolated from the experiences of younger people, are working beyond the
traditional retirement age, going back to school, and opting to age in place.◼ SOLUTIONS Bloomberg Businessweek September 23, 2019And at Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. in Newport News,
Va.—the nation’s largest military shipbuilder—many work-
ers, one-third of whom are in their 50s or older, work on
multigenerational teams.
“Employers know they need to blend employees of
many ages to meet their talent needs,” says Andrew Scott,
an economics professor who studies longevity at London
Business School and the co-author of The 100-Year Life.
“Luckily, there’s a generation of older workers who are
better educated and more physically fit than those who
preceded them,” he says. “Plus, the human skills most
needed today—understanding consumers, teamwork, and
leadership—play to older workers’ strengths.”
Higher education, long a bastion of age segrega-
tion, is also becoming more multigenerational. Harvard,
Notre Dame, Stanford, the University of Minnesota, and
the University of Texas at Austin have programs aimed at
helping people over 50 change careers or find new uses
for their experience. The older students take most of their
classes alongside undergraduate and graduate students.
Other efforts seek to connect the elderly and very
young. Some preschools in Singapore are located within
senior centers, and younger Singaporeans are teaching
technology to older people. The city-state has allocated bil-
lions of dollars to create kampongs, or villages, for all ages
and promote a variety of intergenerational interactions.
In the U.S. more than 100 organizations bring together
elders and children, says a 2018 report by the nonprofit
Generations United and the Eisner Foundation, which
invests in programs that connect generations. In Miami a
senior center to which grandparents often brought their
grandchildren has become the Rainbow Intergenerational
Child Center. Such programs combat the loneliness that’s
problematic for many seniors and young people.
More of this is likely as countries around the world
become more old than young. Globally, more people are
over 65 than under 5 for the first time; in the U.S., more
people are older than 60 than under 18. Some fear this
change, which will become more pronounced in coming
decades, will trigger conflict between generations over
diminishing resources.
It doesn’t have to be that way, says Stanford’s
Carstensen, “if we exploit longer lives to have more multi-
generational contact in ways that benefit everyone.” She’s
seen this in her psychology lab, where older professors
and younger students regularly exchange ideas, with little
focus on chronological age. “Every once in a while, some-
one says, ‘I’m turning 21’ or ‘I’m turning 60,’ and I’m sur-
prised, because I haven’t thought about how old they are,
just what they know and do.” �Carol Hymowitza century ago was to have a living mother. And the
21-year-old and her 70-year-old grandmother may both
be employed; just as the young need income to support
themselves, many older people lack sufficient savings to
fund two or three decades of retirement.
Sig Van Raan has divided his time between writing and
nonprofit work since he retired seven years ago from a
40-year career as a psychotherapist. He’s written a play
and a children’s book, and he’s a director at the Yard, a
contemporary dance and performance center on Martha’s
Vineyard, Mass., where he lives half the year. A benefit to
these activities, which he cherishes: Van Raan, 73, gets to
collaborate with writers, actors, dancers, and volunteers
of many different ages and backgrounds. He also plays on
Sunday mornings in the island’s Chilmark Softball League,
whose members—doctors, carpenters, fishermen, scien-
tists, students, and others—range in age from 14 to 84. “It’s
a strongly supportive group, who especially cheer when an
older guy gets a good hit or makes a good play,” he says.
“It’s competitive, and it’s fun.”
Generational intermingling is most pronounced in the
workforce. Companies today typically employ four or five
generations of workers. Although millennials, in their 20s
and 30s, are the largest cohort, baby boomers are the
only group with a growing participation rate. About 27% of
65- to 74-year-olds had full- or part-time jobs in 2016; by
2026, 30% are expected to be employed, according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Industries with skills shortages and large numbers of
employees approaching retirement age, such as account-
ing, health care, and manufacturing, are trying to retain
older workers, sometimes by offering flexible or part-time
schedules. That’s the case at Allina Health in Minneapolis,
where one-third of about 29,000 employees are 50 or
older and where Chief Executive Officer Penny Wheeler
tells staff, “We need you for a marathon, not a sprint.”30%15070%350Labor force participation
U.S. total, 16 and olderShare of the U.S. population1998 2030 1998 202870 Is the New 20
● 55 to 64 ● 65 to 74 ● 75 and olderPROJECTED PROJECTED