236 Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan
■ Describe how this life transition is different from those that come before and
after.THE TRANSITION TO THE THIRD QUARTER OF LIFE: REINVENTION AND RETIREMENT
The very title of this chapter suggests the difficulty in defining this life stage.
This chapter is organized differently than the others due to the nature of this
passage. Our text is one of the few that acknowledges this newer life phase
which can span the years between 50 and 80 (Trafford, 2004). This chapter
includes ages from the prior chapter on midlife and the subsequent one on
older adults because this phase of life unfolds differently for people chrono-
logically. We believe that understanding this phase is critically important for
those working with the current cohort of baby boomers.
In 1900, the typical U.S. citizen had a life expectancy of 47 years (Trafford,
2004), and now the average life expectancy for White females is 80.5 and for
White males, 75.5 (U. S. Census Bureau, 2012 Statistical Abstract). Aside from
the longer lifespan, health is improved for many of those latter years. The
“retirement/reinvention” revolution relates to increasing the quality of life in
one’s later years. As life is prolonged, adults face the task of making those
extra years as meaningful as possible. Through the 20th century, due to the
extension of both private and public pension plans to cover retirees, adults
began to expect a time of retirement from work as not only a possibility, but
a right (Sargent, Lee, Martin, & Zikic, 2013). The necessary institutional sup-
ports to provide incomes for most workers’ retirements were not established
until the Social Security Act of 1935, and the old defined benefit pensions have
given way to defined contributions to investment plans that put many retirees
at risk for lagging financial support (Zurlo, 2012). Nevertheless, older adults
expect to retire and hope to have the economic ability to do so.
Today, due to a variety of forces including the gender revolution, adults
choosing second or third careers over age 55 (involving not just a change in
employer but also in occupation—recareering), increasing numbers in the
older adult population, and the increased level of education of these adults,
there has been growth in new retirement pathways such as the pursuit of
“bridge employment” (employment after retirement) (Sargent et al., 2013).
This may allow retirees greater economic security while also allowing them
to pursue occupational interests they had not explored earlier in life. Leaving
a job or career requires reevaluation of identity. By midlife, identity is often
intricately entwined with one’s work or occupation. The reevaluation of iden-
tity when retiring, although reminiscent of the adolescent need to create a new
identity, can be frustrating because adults in this phase of life expect to know
who they are. This is part of what we deem a maturational loss as the part of
identity that gives one a sense of self-worth will need to transition and worth
will need to be found in other pursuits and endeavors.
The death of a professional or work identity can also jeopardize the sense
of mattering to society or to oneself. Schlossberg (2009) claims that regard-
less of gender or socioeconomic status, retirees need to feel important, appre-
ciated, and noticed. For Schlossberg, who has written widely on this topic,