Resources for Retirees 

Read the Full Article

Elizabeth H. Simmons, executive vice chancellor and distinguished professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, answers colleagues’ questions about smoothing the pathway toward a fulfilling retirement.

As an academic leader, one of the most important services I can provide for my senior faculty colleagues is to help them plan for a smooth transition to retirement. For many faculty members, the career has been such a central part of their lives that they may not be able to imagine what might lie beyond.

Some have not thought about retirement options or spent time learning about the retirement processes until a life event forces the issue to the forefront of their attention. They then may abruptly realize they are unsure of how to learn about their options or to make plans they could comfortably embrace.

Read the Full Article

Identifies the many pathways into retirement that have emerged over the past several years.

Read the Full Article

In previous research on retirement, what individuals value in life is often assumed to remain stable after the transition into retirement. However, retirement exposes individuals to new social settings and might thus prompt them to reevaluate their life orientations.

Quantitative empirical knowledge about this process is limited, though. This study examines the impact of retirement on changes in the perceived importance of self-development, social status, societal contribution, and generativity in older adults’ lives.

We draw on the life-course framework to develop hypotheses about which life orientations are more likely to change after retirement and how.

The latest landmark study conducted by Age Wave, in partnership with Edward Jones and The Harris Poll, offers a fresh look at retirement across this 20–30-year life stage.

Longevity and the New Journey of Retirement examines today’s changing definition of retirement and the ways in which it no longer resembles our parents’ version of retirement.

It uncovers the birth of a new retirement journey, explores how it unfolds, and reveals four unique stages each with new dreams, worries, choices, and planning needs. The holistic framework of health, family, purpose, and finances across the journey is interconnected and essential to thriving in the new retirement.

Read the Full Article

“As a retirement coach, I wasn’t alarmed by Joel’s growing restlessness. Retirement can be surprisingly challenging, and it often takes two years or more before people settle in. Still, as his wife, it was eye-opening to experience the ups and downs of this transition firsthand.”

Read the Full Report

The widespread lack of forward-looking planning has vexed retirement planners and researchers for many years. Many problems in later years could have been prevented with planning ahead.

Too many people put off making important decisions, only to find themselves later in a serious crisis with limited options.

Read the Full Article

As you get older, you gain the benefits of age — the clearest one being wisdom.

Once you’ve been around the block a few times, you learn a thing or two about how the world works, what you can expect out of life and, most importantly, the benefits of planning for what might be an otherwise uncertain future.

Now it’s time for baby boomers to plan for the next chapter of life.

Read the Full Article

When it comes to planning for the future, it’s not necessarily an easy task. Thinking ahead means understanding that none of us are here for more than just a short time, and that’s often an emotional subject, to say the least.

Yet the truth is that there’s never a bad time to begin having conversations about the future, especially your own, and even more importantly what you want your friends and family to do once you’re no longer here.

Read the Full Advisory Report (PDF)

“This advisory calls attention to the importance of social connection for individual health as well as on community-wide metrics of health and well-being, and conversely the significant consequences when social connection is lacking.

While social connection is often considered an individual challenge, this advisory explores and explains the cultural, community, and societal dynamics that drive connection and disconnection. It also offers recommendations for increasing and strengthening social connection through a whole-of-society approach.

The advisory presents a framework for a national strategy with specific recommendations for the institutions that shape our day-to-day lives: governments, health care systems and insurers, public health departments, research institutions, philanthropy, schools, workplaces, community-based organizations, technology companies, and the media.” (Surgeon General’s Advisory report, p. 6).