Retirement ain’t what it used to be!

 

A generation ago the average life expectancy for a UK male on retirement at 65 was 8 years. Now it is 18 years, and growing.   Today’s 65 year old men and women are fitter, probably wealthier than their predecessors and almost certainly not satisfied with the prospect of spending the whole of their remaining days gently descending into senility.

Also, many men and women are retiring earlier from full time jobs, and find themselves in their 50s interested to put their energy and experience to new uses.

Their financial situations will vary greatly -   some will have no need for or interest in paid employment, others will welcome a supplement to an inadequate pension.

Their interests also will vary greatly - some will be interested to ‘return to school’ to acquire new knowledge and skills, some will be more interested to use existing skills in different ways.

 

The purpose of Retirement Reinvented is to meet the needs of these people and enable them to contribute their own views and experiences.   There are of course numerous existing organizations which exist to satisfy specific needs of retirees, but nowhere where a retiree can easily find a range of what is available, either in their area of interest or in their geographical area, and add his own comments.

 

So, Retirement Reinvented aims to be a comprehensive website for ‘third age’ occupations and interests, to enable retirees to find and follow up what they are interested in doing, whether it is overseas adventure travel or social work around the corner. It will have links to relevant existing websites in different areas of interest. But it is not trying to create an indiscriminate ‘yellow pages’ of information on retirees interests – we want to highlight the best and our users will be the judges of what is the best.     The website will be developed through the contributions of its users.

 

But Retirement Reinvented aims to be much more than a central source of information on what is already happening. Its more important aim is to promote and encourage greater use of this invaluable asset of time and experience represented by the growing number of third age men and women. Retirement Reinvented will be an ideal medium for potential ‘users’ of third age experience to reach their market direct.   The existence of an efficient medium for reaching the third age market direct will encourage the growth of products designed for that market. Making better use of the talents of the retirees will be beneficial from a national viewpoint as well as from the viewpoint of the participating pensioners.