Retirement Survey Reveals Disconnects Between Employers and Older Workers
Larry Gard, Ph.D. There are some interesting findings in the past two Retirement Surveys conducted by the nonprofit Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies®. The respondents included over 1800 employers and roughly 6000 workers. Here is a noteworthy selection from the report: Three quarters of employers consider themselves to be “aging friendly” yet only 54% of workers share that sentiment, and only about a quarter of firms have adopted a formal Diversity & Inclusion policy that specifically includes age. The data suggests some disconnects between employees and older workers. What’s going on here? Even when companies try to be “aging friendly” it seems that some may be missing the mark. Like most workplace topics, this one is complicated and there are no simple answers, but I wonder if it has something to do with our cultural attitudes toward aging. One of my former professors, the distinguished gero-psychologist David Gutmann, often referenced Simone de Beauvoir