VOCATIONS Baby boomers are hanging on to jobs they love

As baby boomers age, they want to keep working but on their own terms.
WASHINGTON POST
HOWLAND -- On a recent Sunday morning, the Rev. Mike Roberts of Believers Christian Fellowship, a fast-growing evangelical church housed in a converted school, conducted a hasty remarriage service for a troubled couple.
He urged them to take communion together and give each other strength. The next day, the Rev. Mr. Roberts, 48, went back to his other job -- as a drug-sales representative for Abbott Laboratories, making the rounds at pharmacies, clinics and doctors' offices.
This unusual mix of vocations makes perfect sense to Roberts, who recently cut back on his drug-sales job to pursue his dream of entering church ministry.
The work-life mixture also makes sense to Abbott, which encouraged the 22-year veteran to find a job-sharing partner so he could work half-time rather than quit.
The company cut his pay in half but let him retain his full health benefits and company car, a 2001 Dodge Caravan, rather than lose one of its top sales producers.
"This is a great arrangement," said Mark Niedert, Abbott's district sales manager, who helped Roberts find another aspiring minister to take over half of his workload.
"It solved a problem we were facing. I wouldn't have to try to fill his shoes. ... He has a kind of knowledge you just can't replace. It's intellectual capital -- it's what it's all about."
Their idea
Baby boomers like Roberts are causing some very curious things to take place in the work world as they march on into old age. Yes, many of them love their jobs and plan to work well into retirement -- surveys tell us that.
But what's becoming clear is that they want to continue that work on -- what a surprise, coming from the boomers -- their own terms, just as the 68 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 have done with most everything else in the past 30 years.
Boomers don't want to give up the jobs they love. But they do want to cut back on the intensity of their work, to make room for family or leisure or, like Roberts, to follow a passion.
But "it's not a population that wants to quit working, buy an RV and travel around the country," said Linda Barrington, labor economist and director of strategic planning for the Conference Board, a corporate-funded think tank.
"They have a strong desire to be involved and active, to pursue interests and to contribute to society."
Her group conducted a survey last year of 1,500 workers age 50 and older at large corporations. More than half said they didn't plan to retire in the next five years. Those who said they did added that they would work longer if they could work part time.
AARP survey
And a recent survey by AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) found that about 69 percent of workers 45 and older plan to work into the traditional retirement years; about half said that meant part-time work.
What are they planning to do with the rest of their time?
The AARP study showed that more than three-quarters want to "do something worthwhile," "learn something new," "help others" or "pursue something they've always wanted to do."
About 70 percent said they want to find better ways to balance their work with their personal lives, citing concerns about aging parents, ill health and problems with their children.
These concerns show maturity and nuanced understanding of where work fits into life, most would argue.
"A lot of folks go through their career, working hard every day, getting up and doing things," said management consultant Sylvester Schieber, director of research at Watson Wyatt Worldwide.
"They're successful and they're well-rewarded in the marketplace. But at some point, making additional money isn't the be-all and end-all, and they find themselves looking for something different that will give them a different sort of fulfillment."
What's changed
Clearly there's a tug of war going on inside the ex-Me Generation. They don't want to give up the money or prestige of their careers; nonetheless, the passing years and missed opportunities have shown them that work simply isn't all there is -- and it certainly isn't what it used to be.
Even "age 65" seems to have lost the symbolism it had when Americans didn't live as long -- and when full Social Security benefits kicked in at age 65.
Today, although people can qualify for some benefits at age 62, those born between 1943 and 1954 won't qualify for full benefits until age 66. Workers born in 1960 and later, which includes the tail end of the boom, must wait till age 67.
Contemplating that longer timeline may lurk psychologically in the background, encouraging boomers to view work as a long road but perhaps not a constantly overloaded one.