Quotes from Chris Farrell

The rise of unretirement is good news for the economy's vitality, the material well-being of individuals in life's third stage, and for shoring up the financial health of the social safety net.

It is notorious that the insatiable factory wears out its workers with great rapidity. As it scraps machinery so it scraps human beings. The young, the vigorous, the adaptable, the supple of limb, the alert of mind, are in demand," wrote economist Edward Devine in 1909. "Middle age is old age, and the wornout worker, if he has no children and if he has no savings, becomes an item in the aggregate of the unemployed.

The big difference between the twentysomething and sixtysomething generations is a sense of time. The young believe they have plenty of time, while for older workers time is precious. "Time is running short, and many boomers want work that also offers purpose," says Marc Freedman. "They too want work that gives meaning.

The era of young adults graduating from high school, joining a union, and making a good living at a factory—working class on the job and middle class at home—has largely disappeared.

Instead, the emerging story from cognitive neuroscience is that aging can be successful, associated with gains and losses. It is not necessarily a unidirectional process but rather a complex phenomenon characterized by reorganization, optimization and enduring functional plasticity that can enable the maintenance of a productive—and happy—life.

A basic dividing line is age fifty," says Edward Rogoff, economist at Baruch College, City University of New York. "You lose a good job at age fifty, the chances of getting another are small, so you do something else. You start your own business.

A common expression among laid-off workers fifty-five years and older who are struggling to find work is "you don't even exist." You cobble a job here and a job there, always marginal to management. Apply for a job you're well qualified for and you'll probably never hear back from the employer.

If an organization wants innovation to flourish, the conversation needs to change from severance packages to retention bonuses.