Work more? work less?

  

In a lecture, The Nobel Laureate, Dr. Esaki indicated that most of the winners start working on projects in their 20-30s, make great discoveries and innovations at an average age of 32 and receive Nobel prize awards 10 or 20 years thereafter.

 

With increasing age, the level of experience increases but a corresponding decline in creativity. Thus, it is vital to stimulate, encourage and cultivate more young promising scientists and engineers to come on board early. Conducive R&D environment is a prerequisite to enable them to unleash their potentials during their most precious and creative years.

 

Longevity Vs. Retirement Age

 

Surveys done showed that the pension funds in many large corporations (e.g., Boeing, Lockheed Martin, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, etc.) have been “overfunded” because many “late retirees” who working continuously into their twilight years and retired late died within two years after their retirement age of around 65. In other words, many of these late retirees did not live long enough to collect bulk of their pension monies.

 

A Dr. Ephrem Cheng provided the important results in the following Table and the associated chart from an actuarial study of life span vs. age at retirement. The study was based on the number of pension checks sent to retirees of Boeing Aerospace. Further comparisons showed close similarities amongst Lockheed, Bell Lab and Ford Motor.

 

 

Age at Retirement	Average Age At Death
49.9	86
51.2	85.3
52.5	84.6
53.8	83.9
55.1	83.2
56.4	82.5
57.2	81.4
58.3	80
59.2	78.5
60.1	76.8
61	74.5
62.1	71.8
63.1	69.3
64.1	67.9
65.2	66.8

 

 

Table indicates that for people retired at the age of 50, their average life span is 86 whereas for people retired at the age of 65, their average life span is only 66.8. Sad to say employees retiring at age of 65 receive pension checks for only 18 months, on average, prior to death.

 

An important conclusion from this study is that for every year one works beyond age 55, one loses 2 years of lifespan on average. The hard-working late retirees probably put too much stress on their aging body-and-mind resulting in various serious health problems that force them to quit and retire eventually. Prolonged stress-induced serious health issues can cause deaths within two years after their retirement. Luckily majority of the working population does not fall under this category.  

 

On the other hand, people who take early retirements at the age of 55 tend to live long and well into their 80s and beyond. These earlier retirees probably are either financially sound or do plan and manage their various aspects of their life, health and career well such that they can afford to retire early and comfortably. They do not stay around idle but continue to do some work of their interests on the part-time basis at a more leisure pace and less stress.

 

More findings

 

The Japanese understand the benefits of early retirement and most are off the hook by 60 or earlier. This may be one of the factors contributing to their longevity.  

 

Over in USA, the big corporations are now placing more value on the higher creativity and adaptability of younger employees and less value on the experience of the older employees.

 

The accelerating pace of innovations and technology advances is getting faster and faster and is forcing everyone to compete fiercely on the information super-highways. The highly productive and highly efficient workplace may be the playground for highly creative and dynamic young people to compete and to flourish, but tormenting for the older employees.

 

Conclusion

 

The most precious, creative and innovative period in your life is the 10-year period around the age of 32. Plan your career path to use your most productive years wisely and effectively to produce your greatest achievements in your life.

 

Early planning of your career path and financial matter can make comfortable retirement possible by the age of 55 or earlier to enjoy long, happy and relaxed retirement life into your golden age of 80s and beyond. In retirement, you can still enjoy some fun work of great interest to you and of great values to the society and the community.

 

 

Failure to do so only drag you back into the rat race which means more struggles before you hit the retirement age of 65 or older and then probably die within 18 months thereafter. By working very hard in the pressure cooker for 10 more years beyond the age of 55, you give up at least 20 years of your life span on average.

Having a stressful job is worse than losing your job. Research shows the correlation between heart disease and job stress for both sexes. In fact, women who are constantly subjected to high stress stand a 88% more chance of getting heart attacks and surgery than their less-stressed counterparts.

To make retirement a bliss, when one hits 50 his or her financial commitment should be reduced to a minimal.  This is the time to plan for retirement and begins the next chapter of  life.  Consider a less taxing job with lower responsibility and shorter working hours is most ideal.  With the advent of technology, working remotely is another possibility in the not too distant future.  Surveys found that people are willing to work for lower salaries off the conventional work sites in a more relaxed manner.  Is no longer work-life balance, but work-life integration.

Conclusion

No one has more or less time on hand. The difference lies in how each one of us manages each moment of our time. We do not have to abandon responsibilities but to overdose on duty is killing ourselves slowly.