This article is peppered with data and facts about the evolution of retirement over the past few decades due to significant changes in pensions, medical benefits, etc. The actual facts and data is mingled with stories of retirees that you won't always feel sorry for, but the data was interesting:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/09/business/09retire.html?th
One of the personal stories was more compelling to me than the typical one you read. This guy made some investment mistakes, but largely got caught by a company that turned on him.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/09/business/09retire.html?th
Retirement Turns Into a Rest Stop as Benefits Dwindle
. . .Not only are many discovering that they cannot afford to retire, they are also finding themselves in a labor market in which companies facing tough competition seem intent on controlling costs, partly by ridding themselves of higher-earning older workers.
. . .The steepest turnaround in labor participation has occurred among older men. The percentage of men 55 to 64 years old in the work force fell steadily from 87 percent in 1950 to under 65 percent in 1994. Then it began inching back up, reaching 69 percent last year, according to the Labor Department. Among men 65 and older, the participation rate rose from 15 percent in 1994 to 19 percent last year.
For older women, who entered the labor force at increasing rates through the 1950's and 1960's, the change has been less pronounced. Nevertheless, the rate of participation for women over 55, after declining from around 26 percent in the late 1960's to nearly 21 percent in the mid-1980's, has rebounded over the last two decades, to 31 percent.
. . .As recently as 1979, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found more than 80 percent of the workers covered by a company retirement plan had a defined-benefit pension. By 2001, the percentage had dropped to a little over 40 percent.
. . .In 1988, two-thirds of all large employers offered health benefits to retirees; last year only about one-third did. And employers who offer coverage are forcing workers to shoulder more of the cost. In 2004, 79 percent of them increased their retirees' premiums. A survey by Watson Wyatt, a corporate-benefits consulting firm, found that the absence of company-financed retiree health insurance increased the average retirement age by two years for women and 1.5 years for men.
. . .For Americans heading into retirement, the contrast to the previous generation is stark. The typical household headed by a 47- to 64-year-old is poorer today, in constant dollars, than a similar household was in 1983. The main reason is the disappearance of the traditional pension, according to Edward N. Wolff, a New York University economist who analyzed Federal Reserve wealth data."
One of the personal stories was more compelling to me than the typical one you read. This guy made some investment mistakes, but largely got caught by a company that turned on him.
. . .Made to carry more of the burden of their retirement, many retirees say they feel that a social compact between workers and employers - a set of expectations established over the second half of the 20th century - is being dismantled.
. . .Joe Janson, for example, retired three years ago, when he was 55, from an $83,000-a-year engineering job at Lucent to a $35,000 pension. But now he is looking for work again to pay for his family's health insurance, which Lucent cut last year.
. . ."We were making it before they took medical away," Mr. Janson said. "It's kind of like the company pulling the rug out from under me now."