The Death of Retirement and The Birth of Longevity

Amar Pandit , CFA , CFP

August 27, 2021 | 2 Minute Read

Retirement is Dead.

Yes, you read it right.

Retirement is a Concept and Product of the 20th Century. In the 21st century, we will witness the Birth of Longevity.

What does this mean?
In simple words, people are likely to live longer. In fact, they already are.

Look at some of the retirees or your near and dear ones. We are all seeing people living in their nineties to some who have even crossed a hundred.

We are now living in an era where Gene Editing is no longer a myth or something that will take 100 years to happen.

CRISPR, a gene editing technology will likely change the way diseases are treated. I don’t want to give a crash course on CRISPR here. You can read all about it in a fascinating book by Walter Issacson called “The Code Breaker – Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race”.

Even without the use of gene editing, people are living in their late nineties. What do you think would happen later? I had heard someone from Singularity University say, “If you manage to live till 2030, chances are you will comfortably live in your hundreds”.

Well, let us not focus on whether this is accurate or not as we still have a key issue to look at (even today).

What are the personal finance implications for the person living till the age of 100? It is a period of 40 years after Retirement. Thus, the whole concept of Retirement will undergo a big change and Longevity Planning will take its place. I hope to do justice to this subject in my book titled (you guessed it) “The Death of Retirement and the Birth of Longevity”.

Lifestyle Inflation (the one that is way higher than the published inflation figures) along with Longevity will make prudent life centred planning a necessity for everyone in the 21st century.

What do you think?

As always, I would love to hear from you.