Sue Ellen King worked as a nursing educator and critical care nurse at University of Florida Health for almost four decades. Her co-workers kindly joked that she had been at the hospital since the foundation was laid, which happened to be true. King was ready. She circled her last work day on the calendar and took a week-long trip with her husband to celebrate her upcoming freedom. But, when she actually transitioned into retirement, King found that her carefully crafted post-work experience had fallen flat. “I’d done all the preparation, except to really think about what life was going to be like,” King said. After only three months, she returned to work in a part-time position at the hospital. Economists call this increasingly common trend “unretirement.” A recent survey conducted by the RAND Corporation, showed that nearly 40% of those working who were over the age of 65 had temporarily retired at some prior point. Kathleen Mullen, a RAND senior economist, reported that they “definitely see evidence that retirement is fluid. There’s less of the traditional schedule: work to a certain age, retire, see the world. We see people lengthening their careers.”
See Paula Span, Many Americans Try Retirement, Then Change Their Minds, The New York Times, March 30, 2018.
Special thanks to Lewis Saret (Attorney, Washington, D.C.) for bringing this article to my attention.
