Barron's Only Half of People Stay Employed Through Their 50s. How to Prepare covers research showing that about half of Americans work continuously throughout their 50s,
As the chart below (click to enlarge) from the TIAA Institute study Should women just delay retirement and work longer? shows, women are even less likely to stay continuously employed in their 50s than men are.
Insecure jobs, caregiving requirements, health issues, and, of course, age discrimination are listed as the reasons for the lack of continuous work.
And if you don't work continuously in your 50s, you're much less likely to work in your 60s. Key quote from Barron's article:
Eighty percent of those who worked continuously in their 50s continued to work into their next decade of life, versus just 35% of those who were intermittently employed ...
We often hear about these reasons in our research on independent workers.
And we often hear these are reasons many in their 50s and 60s choose independent work. It provides both the flexibility to deal with life's issues and a way to at least reduce the impact of age discrimination.
These are part of the reason older Americans have the highest self-employment rates.
