No Such Thing

There’s a lot to say about the phrase “retirement age”—and believe me, I’ll say plenty—but the simplest is this: There’s no such thing.

The ages at which people retire are unique to every individual. And plenty don’t “retire” at all.

What happens when the idea that a certain birthday—or a certain decade—is repeatedly referred to this way? It normalizes the idea that people don’t get to make their own decisions. That there’s an agreed-upon time to be pushed out, passed over, or not hired.

Instead, let’s make our own when-to-work decisions.

And let’s retire “retirement age.”

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