MW 'Retirement is nonsense': Why retirement may need a rebranding

By Jessica Hall

Is retirement a 'sad' and loathesome concept?

Retirement may need a rebranding.

The word retirement - which comes from the French verb "retirer," meaning "to withdraw" - doesn't fit the modern view of the last several decades of life when people may be working part time, volunteering or enjoying their golden years.

"I often say the only thing many people are retiring these days is the word retirement," said Janine Vanderburg, chief executive of the Encore Roadmap and co-founder of Changing the Narrative, an advocacy group raising awareness on ageism. "Today's 60- and 70-somethings are launching businesses, starting second acts and rewiring their lives. And language is catching up with reality, with terms like 'unretirement,' 'rewirement,' 'second act,' 'third stage' and 'encore' gaining traction."

Even AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, struck out the word "retired" from its name in 1999, since people do not have to be retired to join the organization. AARP says 44% of its members are currently still working.

Read: Why a record number of adults over 65 are working - and it's not just about money

The debate about retirement comes as the population is aging, and as older workers age 65 and above - while smaller in overall numbers - represent the fastest rate of labor-force growth annually among age groups, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In an interview in December with GQ, former late-night talk-show host David Letterman, 78, talked about retirement being a "myth" that goes against the human need to be useful and productive.

"Retirement is nonsense. You won't retire," Letterman said. "The human mechanism will not allow you to retire."

Former WNBA star Diana Taurasi recently recounted how she was about to board a plane when her 7-year-old son asked: "Is retirement sad?" She said she thought about the question throughout their four-hour flight.

"It is sad," Taurasi, 42, said during her retirement news conference in March. "I am sad. I don't show it. I am. I don't like to outwardly show my sadness, but I am sad. It's the game that I played since I was 7."

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote recently on Substack about his retirement, saying: "Frankly, I loathed the concept of 'retiring.' I still do."

Not liking the idea of retirement may be a luxury, some experts say, while others see it as a golden ring they're chasing but can never afford to enjoy.

"I love Reich, but his comment reflects the interests of a particular class - the upper professional class. Retirement is still a perfectly good and meaningful word for most workers. I actually prefer the Spanish word 'jubilación,' which carries even more dignity and celebration," said Teresa Ghilarducci, an economist and professor at the New School for Social Research and an expert on retirement security.

"The only real change that my research has uncovered is that regular workers nearing retirement are now more worried they can't afford to retire. But being worried about something doesn't mean they don't want it," Ghilarducci said.

Retirement is a relatively new concept in history. The earliest-known use of the noun "retirement" is from 1536 in a letter by Henry VIII, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. A lot has changed since then.

Read: Golden Girls' no more: How America's concept of old age became outdated

During the first era of retirement, which lasted about 100,000 years, there was no such thing, noted Ken Dychtwald, chief executive of AgeWave. People worked until they died.

The second phase started in the 1930s with the creation of Social Security, Dychtwald said. That set the retirement age at 65 at a time when life expectancy was 61 years for white males and 65 for white females. The life expectancy at the time for black males was 51.1 years, while for black females it was 55.5.

The third era of retirement came around the 1970s with the creation of retirement communities, and the idea that retirement was a time of leisure or an extended vacation. At that point, retirement was seen as a mark of success, and retiring early was an impressive feat to be celebrated, Dychtwald said.

Now, in the fourth era, society is seeing its most successful people deciding not to retire. The Rolling Stones recently toured as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are still rocking in their 80s. Harrison Ford, now 82, recently played Indiana Jones for a fifth time. President Donald Trump is 78. Warren Buffett, who is 94, said Saturday that he will pass the CEO reins at year-end but remain chairman at Berkshire Hathaway $(BRK.A)$ $(BRK.B)$.

"Some of the most successful people are working longer," Dychtwald said. "Retiring at age 65 and living another 20 years on average - there's not a lot of us who have saved enough to pay for 20-plus more years.

"This new era offers a better balance. This notion that you work like a crazy person for 40 years and then do nothing is a crazy idea," he added. "Whether it's flex-retirement, flex-work, unretirement, whatever - a new word hasn't caught on. There's no new word to replace retirement, but the ideas behind retirement have changed."

Read: I went back to work for 5 years after retiring. Do I get more Social Security?

Working in retirement

"We're reaching an inflection point where work and retirement are not mutually exclusive," said Catherine Collinson, chief executive and president of the nonprofit Transamerica Institute and its Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies.

"Most of today's workers don't see retirement as a full stop. They want flexibility in working for financial and healthy aging reasons," she said. "Retirement is evolving. We don't have a new word for it yet."

A 2025 study by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found that 87% of workers had positive word associations with "retirement," compared with only 39% who cited negative ones.

Workers' top three positive word associations were "freedom" (58%), "enjoyment" (52%) and "stress-free" (39%), while the top three negative word associations were "financial insecurity" (17%), "health decline" (16%) and "boredom" (13%).

Richard Eisenberg, a writer who reports on the world of "unretirement" for MarketWatch, said he views his own retirement as a choice: He left his full-time job and now works how often he wants, when he wants and with whom he wants.

"By the traditional definition, retirement means you've stopped work 100%. That's not true for some people. If you're still doing work, you're not retired, at least by today's definition of retirement," Eisenberg said.

"I'm unretired; I'm busy, but I'm not working all the time," he added. "I'm a unicorn in some ways, but I know that I'm not. There's other people having flexible jobs or working part time or being semiretired."

Eisenberg said several of his friends have scaled back their work hours as well, but are reluctant to say they're retired or semiretired - as if they're uncomfortable talking about the new phase of life they're in.

"So many of us have tied up with work as our identity. People don't want to lose that. If I'm not working, who am I anyway? That's the fear," he said. "It's as if you're not a productive member of society somehow."

-Jessica Hall

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May 07, 2025 10:00 ET (14:00 GMT)

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