Well, if you read the book Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life by Marc Freedman, you will find out that they all have encore careers in totally different areas than their adult employment lives. They are all doing work that they love. A few of them went back to college to get additional degrees and they are all 55 years old or older.

We recently went to a conference hosted by Hudson Valley Community College to address the changing workplace needs of America’s aging population.  The keynote speaker was Marc Freedman. We had an opportunity to interview him and would like to share some of his comments and insights about aging and work.

The individuals sited in Freedman’s book, like many retirees represent a whole new demographic that is converging between the world of employment and traditional retirement. Americans are living longer, healthier lives. If you retire at 60 years old you probably have another 25 years or more ahead of you. The prospect of spending those next 25 or 30 years in Sun City, Arizona or Leisure World, California is no longer as attractive as it was fifty years ago.

According to Freedman, the work mentality of the previous generation of retirees doesn’t fit the wave of people currently moving into their 60s.  He tells the stories of real people in his book, people who were not satisfied or wealthy enough to spend the rest of their lives fishing or playing mahjong. They all gravitated to new work that brings them meaning and contributes value to their communities.

Freedman calls these phenomena “a perfect storm” and sums it up in his book: “Demographic and economic forces are intersecting with trends in longevity, the labor market and human development to create new conditions just at a time when social and environmental challenges call out for new approaches. Powerful forces are pushing Americans to work longer and in new ways, to use people’s education and experience for higher purposes.”

What do the people who represent this group have to say? We spoke with many fellow attendees during lunch and breaks. To our surprise the participants were people in their 50s and 60s, with a few in their 70s. Some had already retired and several were planning retirement within the year. We had expected to see many more employers and human resource professionals, but instead met people in the planning stages of the next step in their careers.

One woman retired for three years, but did so without a plan. Now she finds herself seriously wanting to direct her experience and talents into new work. She shared her lifelong aspiration with us, to play the clarinet in the New York Philharmonic. She was encouraged by Freedman’s talk to direct her passion into a new stage of work and pleasure.

We spoke with a transportation planner, an architect, teachers, and workers in human service, in veterinary medicine, in journalism. All were vibrant and vital and not interested in throwing in the towel to play shuffleboard or golf every day.

Freedman proposes a new deal that walks away from the way older adults have been treated since the Depression, when we were offered “Golden Years” in an effort to reduce the older workforce to open up jobs for the young. You would be provided financial incentives and security. And in place of work, leisure and recreation would fill your days. In his book, Freedman lays out a plan for what he calls an Encore Society. It is very practical, includes flexibility and addresses a multitude of issues currently looming in front of American and global society.

As Freedman says, “The new sixty isn’t the new forty or the new thirty. It’s the new sixty. The key question is: What do you want to do now that you’ve grown up?