look at those who retired in the mid 1960's . they had 20 years of crappy stock market returns then went right into double digit inflation.
Most/many in that era had pensions and didn't have to worry about investing via IRA/401(k)'s, nor did they have to worry about investing for the future, after they retired.
The original IRA plan (e.g. ERISA) only started in 1974 with contributions capped at $1500. TIRA plans for those with pensions did not start until 1982 (law passed in 1981) which allowed the initial $2000 contribution.
As far as 401(k) plans? The law (of which the term 401k was a sub-section) came about in 1978; however, actual plans (if offered at all) did not come about until years later.
You can't go too far back in history to discuss investment history/returns based upon "tools" (IRA/401(k)'s) that were actually not available, nor in wide spread use for folks to prepare for retirement. None of our relatives ever invested in the market. At the most, if they had "investments", they were CD's.
Heck, DW/me did not start our first IRA until 1982 (the first year they were offered). Our respective 401(k)'s were not available from our respective employers until years later, when our pension plans were discontinued/eliminated.
Our respective pensions were converted to cash (under then ERISA rules) and rolled over to our respective IRA's; they were not worth more than a couple thousand dollars at that time.
The year we started our directed investments for retirement? 1982. How old were we? Both 34.
We certainly got a late start, but then again we (like our parents/grandparents before us) never had to save for retirement until that age. We had pensions along with SS, and any other savings we had over the years (the "three legged stool"). Why save/invest for retirement?
Things change (as they always do, in life) Even though we started late, we made up for lost time by both being agressive in our contributions (33% of our gross income, over the years) along with high equity holdings (90-95%) during our accumulation years. That level of contributions was what drove us to live an extreme LBYM lifestyle, since we realized quickly that our financial future was in our hands, not in the hands of our respective companies as it had been for us (and our parents/grandparents) but was directly our responsibility.
BTW, I had a j*b from 1971-1979 that had a pension (before the period of IRA's/401(k)'s). However, that was lost due to federal rules that had pension vesting only after 10 years. I had eight years in when I left. That was just more "lost time - lost benefits".