Let the prognostication begin!

Predictably the New Year – in which the first of the baby boomers turn 65 – began with much of the usual hand-wringing over what the aging of the country’s largest demographic will mean for the economy, politics and culture.

In its first issue of the new year, The Economist led off its U.S. section with a story entitled “As Boomers Wrinkle: The most troublesome age group ever still has some last fireworks up its sleeve.” The gist of the article was that boomer retirements and the sky-rocketing health costs caused by an aging population “will send the budget deficit into the stratosphere.” Boomers’ political clout, the article continues, will keep cooler heads from prevailing in making the necessary adjustments to ward off economic Armageddon.

On New Year’s Eve, a New York Times front page article called the coming year a “new self-absorption milestone” for a generation it claims has always been obsessed with itself. Citing research, including the recent Pew poll on baby boomer attitudes, the Times piece proclaimed that the alleged self-obsession of this generation was now turning into self-pity, “linked to the struggling economy, the demands of middle age and a general sense of lofty goals not met by the generation that once sang of teaching the world to sing in perfect harmony, and then buying it a Coke.”

Many readers protested the characterization in letters to the editor, including our friend Doug Dickson, president of Discovering What’s Next and the Life Planning Network, who wrote:

“Most boomers want to remain engaged and make a contribution as they age. Rather than just take, they also want to give. Many have and will continue to find ways to do just that. Instead of bemoaning their potential drag on Social Security and Medicare, we should be opening doors that enable boomers to apply their education, experience and energy to the solution of longstanding societal challenges.”

Now, to the other side of the story. On January 5, USA Today ran an opinion piece that led off with the story of Purpose Prize winner Judith Van Ginkel, the director of Every Child Succeeds, a program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital that serves 17,000 at-risk pregnant women and their children. Van Ginkel, who is 71 and puts in 50-60 hour work weeks, has no intention of retiring anytime soon. She’s a model of a radical makeover of the concepts of work and retirement that define the idea of encore careers.

It’s not just Purpose Prize winners who inhabit this new stage of life either. With the expectation of longer lives and declining economic resources, more and more baby boomers are now thinking about how they can stay in the workforce longer. What the USA Today piece makes clear is that this doesn’t have to be a punishment.

“I never get up and feel, oh, I have to go to work today,” Van Ginkel says. “I get up wanting to do this.”

Tell us what you think and share the USA Today article with your network.