The buzzword now is "encore careers"
The buzzword now is "encore careers"
Posted 06/01/2009 - 5:29pm
The Boston Globe’s Irene Sege writes about “A boom in ‘encore careers,’” covering the Serve America Act, encore fellowships, the Purpose Prize and Harvard’s new Advanced Leadership Institute.
“Three-quarters of boomers surveyed by Merrill Lynch plan to continue working, typically to ‘retire’ at 64 and start a second career, often one that not only pays the bills but also gives back,” she writes. “The buzzword now is ‘encore careers,’ and a number of vehicles are emerging to help boomers and their elders make the transition to second careers in nonprofit organizations or public service.”
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- by David Bank
"Helping others and whatnot"
Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post discovers the encore career, but highlights health-care coverage as the biggest obstacle to making the jump, in a post on his Achenblog.
He begins: “Today a friend told me about this new concept: the encore career. This is the career you launch into after your main, money-earning, tuition-supporting, mortgage-servicing career is complete. Ideally it would involve something you really care about. Helping others and whatnot.
“I’m thinking this would be a particularly good concept for middle-aged workers to embrace if and when the pink slip comes. Don’t call it a lay-off, call it an opportunity to transition to the encore career. You can even imagine you hear your fans shouting “Encore! Encore!” as you are escorted out of the building by the security guard.”
But even for non-profit organizations, Achenbach notes, health care costs mean “Everyone over 55 is a time bomb.”
He concludes: “As the country debates the future of health care, those of us who want to have an encore career may want to think hard about the need for universal, transportable medical insurance. Because I don’t want health care costs to prevent me from becoming a cowboy.”
Breaking the rules
I like the way Irene describes her current dilemma. Although her 401(k) is decimated, she’s still paying for college and the Internet is threatening her career as a journalist, she holds out hope for an encore career because “we baby boomers have always been bent on changing the rules, and plenty of us never thought we’d retire the old way anyway.”