Study to discover how we plan for retirement

Academics from the University of Melbourne and Canada’s York and McGill Universities are calling on recent baby boomer retirees to participate in a study looking at how people plan for retirement in light of evolving post-retirement challenges.

Many OECD nations are already changing how they handle the responsibility of retirement, and Australia will soon have to follow, according to associate professor Leisa Sargent from the University of Melbourne.

“Many of them are emphasising ‘productive’, ‘active’ and ‘positive’ ageing. This is particularly true in terms of new policies relating to the repealing of pensions and user-pays health services, and the continued engagement in work to be ‘forever productive’,” she said.

Preliminary results suggest many retirees have a strong focus on looking forward even if they are generally satisfied with their newly found freedom and independence, she said.

The Reinventing Retirement study aimed to assess both the practical and theoretical implications of changing approaches to retirement, for example whether they would help pass on knowledge in the workplace, she said.

University of Melbourne research fellow Paul Evans said there were concerns baby boomer retirements could lead to shortages of expertise and experience, especially when combined with smaller cohorts of new professionals and managers.

“This study will contribute to advancing our knowledge about how baby boomers are currently experiencing retirement and how firms are responding both in Australia and Canada.”

The team wants to interview managers aged between 55 and 65, who have spent at least 10 of the past 15 years in large private sector organisations, and who are recently retired or close to retirement.