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Later Life ‘Encore Work’
Replaces Income, Reinvents Retirement
By Kay Harvey, New America Media
April 16, 2012
Picture Credit: Downsized boomer Bob
Hansen is pictured tutoring students
Anwar Baja and Eugene Banakweri at
Linwood Monroe Arts Plus school in St.
Paul. Kay Harvey/MinnPost
ST. PAUL, Minn.--Bob Hansen is
good at reinventing himself. It’s a
trait that has enabled him to land
paying jobs since taking a buyout five
years ago from the Ford Motor Company
plant in St. Paul. Drawing from skills
honed over the years, he has created a
patchwork of jobs, both paid work and
what some call “life work,” contributing
to his family and community.
On the heels of downsizings,
rightsizings, outsourcing and plant
closings, many older boomers don’t have
the wealth of high paying job
opportunities they once did. Hansen, 64,
has forged ahead to make work and life
decisions in line with what’s both
do-able and important to him now.
A
Bundle of Paid and Volunteer Jobs
Hansen is a boomer whose
résumé reads like a short
story. Teacher. Ordained Lutheran
pastor. Associate director of the
Chicago Cluster of Theological Schools.
Minnesota Public Radio member-services
representative. Automobile hood-fitter.
At 64, he has created a bundle of
part-time jobs to supplement his pension
from Ford and a portion he receives of
his late wife’s Social Security.
In addition to tutoring and
mentoring junior-high and high-school
students, he provides quality control
for a realty company and teaches a
weekly Bible-study class at his church.
Hansen’s favorite day is
Wednesday. “That’s Grampa Hansen day,”
he said. He spends it each week with his
three young granddaughters.
Many older boomers who leave
career jobs go looking for “encore
work,” said LaRhae Knatterud, director
of aging transformation at the Minnesota
Department of Human Services. Her job
put her at the helm of Transform 2010
and Aging 2030 studies assessing the
aging of the huge baby boom generation
(born from 1946 through 1964) in
Minnesota.
How big is huge? Nationally the
figure is 78 million boomers. A 2005
Minnesota Department of Health report
pegged the state’s number at 1.5 million
strong. By 2030, Minnesotans age 65 and
older will account for 24 percent of the
state’s population, more than double the
percentage recorded in 2000. And more
than the numbers are changing.
A
Looming Skills Gap
As older boomers leave their
jobs, many should open for younger
workers. But in somewhat of a paradox,
some employers are begging boomers to
stay in their jobs, Knatterud said. Why?
There aren’t enough younger people with
the necessary skills. Some Fortune 500
companies are struggling to replace
workers who’ve retired, she said.
“Some are stunned that there
aren’t young people coming in to replace
the boomers,” she said. That trend will
continue. One reason is apparent: Gen X,
the boomers’ children’s generation, is
half as large as the boomer generation.
“As we move into 2015 and on to 2025,”
Knatterud said, “we won’t be able to
replace the boomers.”
Another potential challenge
looms, according to a Governor’s
Workforce Development Council report. By
2018, 70 percent of Minnesota jobs will
require education beyond high school.
Yet only 40 percent of working-age
adults in Minnesota have a
post-secondary degree. And education
levels among American workers are
expected to decline in coming years – a
virtually unprecedented trend.
A similar gap is occurring in
other industries, such as manufacturing,
where most workers now need technical
skills for such tasks as programming
equipment. Area community colleges offer
the training. But taking that leap isn’t
an easy choice for some workers.
“These are physically demanding
jobs,” Knatterud said. “Some workers
don’t want to go back to school for two,
three or four years. For some, she said,
“There’s the question of ‘How far do you
go to get back in?’ ”
That is among the scenarios
that can lead to long-term unemployment.
A worker who’s laid off and cannot find
work becomes dependent on public
support, Knatterud said. “It happens to
some who were once at the top of their
game. Some are too discouraged to look
for work.” Yet for most people who quit
working after turning 55, “it’s a long
time to get by somehow.”
Hope
for the Discouraged
All Hands on Deck, an
initiative of the Governor’s Workforce
Development Council, is a blueprint for
strengthening Minnesota’s workforce and
closing the state’s skills gap. Its
initiatives and programs are geared to
people across the age span, from high
school and college students to aging
workers and people with disabilities.
One initiative offers Lifelong
Learning Accounts (LILAs), “portable
money” designated for job training that
people can use in a current job or apply
to education for a new career. Knatterud
framed LILAs as “a way of putting funds
together to change employment and be
prepared with the right skills.”
Important as it is, though,
money isn’t everything. When David Buck
was laid off a few years ago from a
real-estate company at age 46, he said,
he felt “all alone.” Then he met
visionary Jan Hively, who said, “What
you really need is community.” Buck, of
Minneapolis, forged ahead to create his
own.
Working with Hively, who had
founded the Twin Cities-based Vital
Aging Network
[http://vital-aging-network.org/], Buck
co-created SHiFT
[http://www.shiftonline.org/], which
offers sessions and workshops that have
supported dozens of people at midlife
and older seeking greater meaning in
their work and their lives.
Besides starting a nonprofit,
Buck needed to find another part-time
paying job. He decided to pursue a new
field for him: fundraising. After 75
interviews, Buck signed on for a
half-time job raising money for the
Washburn High School Foundation, where
his children were to go to high school.
Buck later took that experience
and found a part-time position with the
Benedictine Health Center of
Minneapolis. He paired that with
creation of his own consulting business,
helping churches and schools raise money
and assist them with marketing. The
combination “utilizes all of my gifts,”
he said.
SHiFT
and New Risk
SHiFT’s webmaster, Jay McManus,
describes the SHiFT network as “a
community of seekers.” Not everyone in
the network is seeking a paycheck.
SHiFT’s emphasis, Buck said, is
“a more holistic approach.” It’s people
“taking time to redefine what they want
remaining life to be like. We have broad
definitions of work – paid and unpaid.
That could mean taking care of a loved
one,” he said.
Some SHiFT participants have
transitioned into paid work after
completing a “midternship,” an
internship for people at midlife who
learn alongside a mentor skilled in work
that a midtern wants to pursue.
Knatterud cites SHiFT
co-creator Jan Hively’s philosophy:
“Productive until the last breath,” she
said. You can read to a blind person,
Knatterud suggested. Or to a child. You
can send a get-well card.
“With the ‘Great Risk Shift’
comes a redefinition of the safety net,”
Knatterud said, referring to American
society’s transfer of risks to secure
long-term financial stability, from
public and employer-based protections to
individual investments and decisions.
“Values and what’s important
start changing. There’s a redefinition
of who we turn to when we need help,”
Knatterud observed. In down times
there’s a return to the values of
family, community and helping each
other, she said.
“It’s already happening,” she
said. More Minnesota families are living
in multigenerational households. Some
share transportation, too. Along with
that, Minnesota has among the nation’s
highest rates of volunteerism.
We are still, as boomers, a
wonderful resource,” she said. Some may
not get a high-paying job. Some will
find another job and then later develop
a disability and not be able to work.
“But you can serve society in other
ways,” she said. “Think of what you can
do for your grandkids. We need to take
advantage of that now.”
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