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You probably won’t retire when your parents did —here’s why that’s not all bad news | Lynda Gratton

Big Think | September 30, 2025



People are living longer than ever, challenging our assumptions around milestones like retirement. Economist Lynda Gratton explains a “multi-stage life,” and how retiring later isn’t necessarily something to fear.

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Lynda Gratton challenges the idea of retiring at 60, advocating instead for a multi-stage life. She argues that with increasing life expectancy and technological changes, we need to redesign work.

Gratton, a Professor of Management Practice at the London Business School, proposes a flexible approach that allows individuals to customize their lives through lifelong education, diverse work options, and delayed retirement. She encourages self-reflection and courage to embrace this new paradigm, urging viewers to make work enjoyable, exciting, and a continuous learning experience.

The key message is to ditch the old idea of retirement, work longer, and create a life that fits individual needs.

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About Lynda Gratton:

Lynda is a Professor of Management Practice at London Business School where she directs ‘Human Resource Strategy in Transforming Companies’, considered the world’s leading programme on human resources. Lynda is the founder of the advisory practice HSM Advisory and since 2008 has led the Future of Work by HSM which has brought together executives from more than 100 companies over the past 14 years.

Lynda’s work has been acknowledged globally – she has won the Tata prize in India; in the US she has been named as the annual Fellow of NAHR and won the CCL prize; whilst in Australia she has won the AHRI prize; she has received the Best Teacher Award at London Business School. Lynda is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum and chaired the WEF Council of Leadership. She has served on former Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s “Council for designing the 100-year-life society” and is currently a member of the international advisory board of Equinor.

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Written by Big Think

Comments

This post currently has 34 comments.

  1. @lhta9550

    September 30, 2025 at 10:00 am

    “Retire at 60 or 55 just isn’t going to work!” 🤣 Perfect pun and example of conveying the opposite of what you mean. Ma’am I sure will stop going to “work” at 60.

  3. @Nara41284

    September 30, 2025 at 10:00 am

    This b*tch is tripping! I saw both of my parents fall with serious diseases on their 60s only 4 years into their retirement, my dad had a massive brain stroke that left him literally speechless, in a wheelchair and dependant on my mother his primary caregiver, and at age 64 my mother was diagnosed with diabetes type 2 and colon cancer stage 2. Their quality of life is shit after devoting their whole life to study and work. It pains me so much to see that they were not able enjoy their retirement as expected and as they deserved it. So no b*tch is going to convince me to work past my 60, not even past my 50s. My husband and I I are saving and investing as much as we can in The Netherlands and then we will stop working and go live to a much cheaper country where we can benefit from the currency exchange rate. Period.

  7. @arcedavida

    September 30, 2025 at 10:00 am

    It is astounding how people live in this sort of bubble. This capitalist society make excuses for the rich exploiting the working class until they have nothing left to enjoy but their final moments. It is obvious certain people with easy going jobs where they dont to lift a finger or have to sweat to earn their pay…. people withjobs like this lady, can take this point of view because it's nothing to her to send you back into the mines… but what about laborers or people who are in their sixties without transportation? What about all our older people with all their medical issues? What about those with pain who work because they feel they have too which is the vast majority of people… rich out of touch people with easy jobs think that we all should work forever and that its good for us. We want to stress them out until we lower them into a grave? Please dont listen to these corporate ghouls… you give you life meaning, not work, you define what you love not your job…. if you love what you do, thats great, but only few people have a privileged enough life to choose a career where they sit in large rooms and spew nonsense. We all wish we could be this well paid and as useless as this lady i guess.

  8. @minionese1

    September 30, 2025 at 10:00 am

    This is just so evil, yeah let us work ourselves to death while these rich people who got lucky get to thrive off of our work, piss off lady. How about you get a real job doing manual labor as well at your age.

  9. @benrobinson7931

    September 30, 2025 at 10:00 am

    The US life expectancy of a male is now 72, not living longer but less. We are expected to work until 2 years before the average man is gone. Is that a good deal? We are working more hours, years, and making less due to inflation. So I'm not really sure agreeing to work your entire life, if we make it that far, is something we all signed up for. Also jobs tend to look at you bailing for a year or so and not working as a bad sign of work ethic. So this is great in theory but I feel few can actually implement this.

  14. @MizriaHex

    September 30, 2025 at 10:00 am

    The concepts presented in this video are so disconnected from reality. On it's own, it sounds just "okay" in the sense that you have more freedom and flexibility to work on and off throughout your life until you die. But applying that to reality is unfathomable for the average person. Don't you think everyone would be doing this if that were possible? There are so many families who are forced to work 2-3 jobs just to put food on the table and afford rent who haven't been able to afford to take a day off for a doctor's appt much less afford a YEAR OFF TRAVEL VACATION? What are you saying? Where would people get the money for this lifestyle? The whole reason WHY we are asking for lower retirement age is being we have had to work harder/longer and with less pay relative to previous generations just to meet basic survival standards. By raising the retirement age to fit your proposed model, that would require a complete restructuring of the economy and wages. At the current wages, most people have to work their entire lives and, in many cases, well after retirement just to be able to afford the basic necessities. And raising the retirement age for them just isn't fair if they don't have the ability to fit your model. So are you expecting that the majority of people just need to keep carrying the burden of labor on their backs to give people like YOU the luxury of having a fancy gap year of travelling and remote consulting? Please acquaint yourself with reality and do us all a favor by stop talking for the majority of lives you are trying to ruin while sitting in your ivory tower.

  15. @1zinn

    September 30, 2025 at 10:00 am

    This is complete capitalist propaganda. The death rate increased mostly because of medicine and lowered infant mortality. You're telling me my grandparents need to work more, naw. That's not freedom. We the working class have been more and more productive every year and wages aren't growing with our factual productivity and now you want to suggest to add more working years? All just so you can have a larger profit margin? Companies have been taking away pensions from the workers so retirement isn't even as good now and the rich are getting the tax breaks so we the workers have a larger tax bill by percentage. Hell no. Stop acting like we're family Frank Gallagher. We literally build this country and have given record profits and you want to take more from us

  18. @kju-uu8me

    September 30, 2025 at 10:00 am

    Tell me why I wouldn't just kill myself if I can't get into a working enviroment that makes me have fun working if I should never retire? Also we ARE wealthy enough as a society to have everyone only work for a like a third of their lives so why shouldn't we do that?

  30. @THECHAOSEMPEROR

    September 30, 2025 at 10:00 am

    Lady, you won`t want to retire late into your seventies when you`re working a physically intensive job in a warehouse or trades. Retiring as early as possible is the best option for everyone, well almost everyone except for the CEOs and managers who don`t give a damn about people, only profits, so screw them.

    I challenge you to work a warehouse for 40+ years, you`ll want to retire asap or quit right away. I bet you`re too much of a coward to do it.

  32. @user-ue8il6jx3b

    September 30, 2025 at 10:00 am

    So if ai is gonna replace everything but manual labor are you gonna go work in the factory and do manual labor lady? No of course not, also if the argument is that we live longer so we should work longer then if everyone starts treating their bodies horribly on purpose so they live shorter lives then they should all only work for a few years right? No, of course not, they gotta live longer so they can work longer and make you more money

Comments are closed.

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