When I'm Sixty-Four

By Marc Freedman, Civic Ventures &
John S. Gomperts, Experience Corps

USA Today
October 7, 2004.

Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?

Former Beatle John Lennon would have been 64 years old on Saturday.

When Paul McCartney wrote the song "When I'm Sixty-Four" in the late 1950s, 64 must have seemed ancient. But during the past half century, dramatic forces have altered the landscape. Today's 64-year-olds aren't elderly, frail, tired or retired. They're vital and vigorous, and they still want to change the world.

Unlike any previous generation, today's 64-year-olds have:

• More time. The average American lifespan has increased from 47 years in 1900 to 77 years today. Those already 65 can expect to live to 83.
• More older friends. Typical baby boomers will watch the U.S. population older than 55 grow from 25.6 million in 1950 to 108 million in 2030. Put another way, in 1950, 16% of the U.S. population was older than 55. Today, it's 23%, and in 2030, it'll be 31%.
• Better health. It used to be that most Americans retired at 65, then got sick and died within a few years. Today, according to a MacArthur Foundation study, nearly nine in 10 Americans ages 65-74 say they have no disability.
• More money. In the 1950s, 35% of older Americans lived in poverty. Today, that figure is 10%. From 1970 through 2001, the percentage growth in real income (adjusted for inflation) of those ages 65 and above was more than seven times that of those 45-54.
• More education. From 1970 through 2002, the percentage of Americans older than 65 with a high school diploma or higher jumped from 28% to 70%. Nearly one-third of Americans 60-64 were involved in some form of adult education in 1999, up from 17.4% in 1991. And increasingly, Americans are retiring in a town with a university or community college because they want the stimulation.
• More youthful attitudes. Nearly two-thirds of boomers say they feel younger today than their actual age, up from just under half in 1998. And eight in 10 Americans reject the notion that "my retirement is or will be similar to my parent's retirement."
• More interest in continued work. According to recent research by AARP, 79% of baby boomers expect to work in some capacity in their so-called retirement. Some will need to work an additional 20 or 30 years. Others will want to work – to stay active. Whatever the reason, experts predict that by 2015, the number of employees older than 55 will reach a record 31.9 million, compared with 18.4 million in 2000.
• More interest in public service. AARP's survey notes that 54% of boomers say doing work that helps others is very important to them, and half expect to devote more time to community service and volunteering in retirement. In a 2002 survey, 78% of Americans say they expect volunteer work to be an important part of their retirement plans.

It seems clear that older adults today aren't, as the Beatles song goes, "wasting away." They won't be "knitting sweaters by the fireside." And they won't be fitting easily into other stereotypes, either.

Where they fit in society will depend on how fast we change our attitudes and our institutions – how fast we change laws and pension policies to encourage working longer, how fast we expand job training and other educational opportunities for older adults, how fast we expand and adapt federal service programs to include more older Americans, and whether we learn to see older adults as resources, not just recipients.

McCartney wrote "When I'm Sixty Four" when he was a teenager. Today he's 62, still playing to sold-out stadiums, enjoying new love, tending to his 1-year-old daughter and raising funds for causes he believes in, including breast-cancer research. He may be doing even more, not less, when he's 64.

Our challenge as a society will be to keep up with the 77 million baby boomers right behind him.

This article originally appeared as an op-ed column in USA Today on October 7, 2004.