What Longevity Means to Your Career
by Lydia Bronte, author of The Longevity Factor

“When I was fifty, I thought my life was over...
Little did I know that the best years of my life
were still ahead of me.”
Evelyn Nef, 80-year-old psychotherapist
who trained in her 60’s

In every era there have been a few people who lived to be unusually old, but who kept working—and were still good at what they did. We all know that Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall continued to paint until their deaths at 92 and 97 respectively; and that classical guitarist Pablo Casals remained a master musician until his death at 96, despite arthritis.

Usually we rationalize the accomplishments of people like these by calling them exceptions—implying that perhaps their genius was also responsible for their lasting productivity.

But we won’t be able to dismiss such late-life achievements as rarities much longer. One of the most astonishing changes that has ever taken place in human life has occurred during the last one hundred years, although it went relatively unnoticed until a few years ago: people are living a lot longer.

Recently we have begun to focus upon one aspect of this change—aging—because of the growing numbers of older people in our society. The big news, however, is not aging. It is longevity. And as it turns out, although we tend to confuse them, they are two quite different things. 

Galloping Longevity
How many times do you say to yourself, “If only I had more time”? Chances are that you’ll have it: up to thirty years’ worth of extra time, and maybe more. Longevity increased during the 1900s more dramatically than at any other time in recorded human history.

In less than one hundred years, the length of adult life has doubled. We’ve gone from an average life expectancy of 47 to one of 76, and still climbing.

Something that happens over the span of one century may seem ploddingly slow in terms of an individual’s day-to-day experience. By ordinary statistical standards, however, this change has taken place with the speed of a moon rocket.

Consider: from A.D. 1 to A.D. 1900, human beings gained about 1-1/2 years of average life expectancy per century. By contrast, from 1900 to 1994, we have added 29 years—almost three decades—to average life expectancy.

This is a stunning change. What is even more stunning is that it is continuing; in both 1993 and 1994, average life expectancy gained one year in the U.S.A. We are nearing the point where we may add as much average life expectancy every year as former generations added in an entire century!

The extra time starts to click in at around the age of 50. And to make it even better, even though you will live to an older chronological age, for reasons scientists don’t yet understand, that extra time for most is not time spent in old age. 

The Second Middle Age
As lifetimes have lengthened, the physical aging process has been slowed down or postponed. The three extra decades gained through longevity have really been added to the middle of our lives. It amounts to a “second middle age” between the end of the old-style “first middle age,” 35 to 50, and the age at which we become physically old, which varies according to the individual.

The Long Careers Study
From 1987 to 1993, I conducted detailed life-history interviews with 150 people who continued to be active and to work during the second middle age and beyond the age of 65. Their ages ranged between 65 and 102, with the majority in their 70’s and 80’s. These long-lived Americans can be considered the pathfinder generation for those of us in our 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s.

We have had an image of adult life based on the lives of our parents and grandparents, assuming a relatively short lifetime. Relying on this out-dated notion is a little like trying to drive across the U.S.A. using a road map that was printed in 1930: the highway system isn’t the same and even the landscape is different. Today we need a new “map” when thinking about adult life.

The Long Careers Study suggests that in order to make good use of this new life stage, all of us need to change radically the way we think about work.

There’s no question that the length of your life has a connection to your career. The more you know now, the better you will be able to plan ahead for your worklife. If you’ve followed The Five O’Clock Club’s suggestion and made a Forty-Year Vision, you may live to see every aspect of it come true—even if you’re 50 right now.

New Horizons in Growth
As a result of this study, I am convinced that the developmental patterns of a long lifetime are different in many respects from those of a short lifetime. And the patterns of a long career are different from those of a short one.

Americans have a widespread belief that youth and the “first middle age” are the most creative periods of one’s life and career.

For many years we have been told that the most vigorous and productive period is between 30 and 45. This idea was publicized around 1950 by Harvey Lehman, a scientist who calculated creative output in scientists, philosophers, artists, writers, and musicians—without, however, taking into account the possibility that the automatic ceiling of a short lifetime might have skewed the results.

The examples cited below are drawn from the careers of well-known people because of their recognition value. But the patterns hold true for average people too.

Multiple Career Peaks
The Long Careers Study participants showed astonishing differences in their periods of high achievement. Some of them did have early peaks of achievement, while others blossomed later or several times. For example: Dr. Linus Pauling made a discovery in his early 30’s for which he subsequently won a Nobel Prize; Dr. Jonas Salk invented the polio vaccine in his late 30’s to early 40’s.

However, most of the people who had early peaks subsequently went on to have second and third peaks later in life. Pauling, for example, went on to make other scientific discoveries, and then in his late 40’s took ten years to go around the world speaking on behalf of world peace, an effort for which he won a second Nobel Prize.

Next, Pauling began his path-breaking research on human nutrition and vitamins. Ultimately he played a key role both in educating the public about the value of vitamin and mineral supplements, and in persuading government agencies to acknowledge the importance of nutrition to health and to sponsor more research on the subject.

Early Sustained Peaks
The exceptions to the multiple-peak pattern were people who stayed in the same career and turned an early peak into a lifelong high plateau, like science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Beginning with his first successes in his early 30’s, Asimov built a career which helped shape the genre itself, developing science fiction into one of the most popular forms of contemporary literature. His productivity continued unabated until shortly before his death of heart failure at 72.

The Age-50 Gateway
There was another group of participants who began an extraordinary period of productivity at about the age of 50. Almost half of the Study participants had a major career peak after age 50.

This was a completely unexpected finding. In this pattern, the individual seems to be serving a kind of apprenticeship during the first thirty years of working life—accumulating experience in a way that leads to a massive upward shift in achievement around 50.

Culinary expert Julia Child is a striking example. Forced to abandon her first career because she married a fellow civil servant, Paul Child, she searched for several years to find another field. Finally she discovered French cooking by chance, when her husband was assigned to France as a USIA officer.

Starting at about the age of 35, Child trained as a chef, founded her own cooking school, and worked on a cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In 1960, when Child was almost 50, the couple moved back to the U.S.A., where the book was published. A chance publicity appearance on television led to her famous TV series. The peak of Child’s career has lasted into her early 80’s, and shows no signs of slowing down.

A slightly different pattern was that of John W. Gardner, who was president of Carnegie Corporation of New York. When he was in his late 40’s, he was stimulated by the discussions of an education commission of which he was a member. Gardner started writing down his ideas. He eventually developed them into a small book, Excellence: Can We Be Excellent and Equal Too? Decades later the book still forms the basis for many popular business books, by Tom Peters and others.

Gardner went on to make another leap by leaving his comfortable Carnegie position in his 50’s to become Secretary of HEW in Washington. Next he founded two public-interest organizations. He made his most recent career change at 79 when he accepted a professorship at the Stanford University Business School. Now in his early 80’s, he is teaching students more than half a century younger than he is.
 
The Age-65 Gateway
About one-third of the participants had major career peaks after age 65; 5 percent had their highest peak of achievement after age 65.

Most of these people found their real vocation later in life. They had no intention or expectation of becoming prominent; they were simply following their own developmental pattern.

Take, for example, Maggie Kuhn, who had a stable and respectable career as a church organizer. What changed her life was her mandatory retirement at the age of 65. Several other women she knew were also forced out of their careers.

Kuhn and her friends were furious at the discrimination they had experienced. They felt that if they had been men, they undoubtedly would have been offered several more years of full-time work, or consulting contracts. But as women they were simply ushered out unceremoniously.

They decided to form a discussion group to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives. By a series of fortuitous circumstances, their little association ended up becoming the Gray Panthers, a nationwide activist organization.

The Long Growth Curve
Finally, there was a group of people who had “long growth curves.” This means that they moved upward at a relatively steady pace throughout the first 30 or 40 years of their worklives. The progression ended in a pinnacle of achievement after age 50 or after 65. 

The late Norman Cousins, for example, served for decades as the well-known and greatly loved editor of The Saturday Review of Literature. In his 50’s he had an almost-fatal illness which stimulated him to write a book, Anatomy of an Illness (1979). Its tremendous popularity led him to a major career change at the age of 64: he became an adjunct professor of medicine at the UCLA Medical School.

Until his death at the age of 76, Cousins helped design experiments on the relationship of the mind to physical health. His brilliant work with his medical colleagues at UCLA laid a solid scientific foundation for mind-body health research.

Cousins’ career had a steady ascent, with new periods of growth triggered by his response to experience. This proactive stance towards one’s own life was displayed by most of the Study participants.

Progressive Patterns
Finally, there were other types of progressions in the careers of some Study participants. Many participants progressed from being employees, to becoming managers or administrators, to becoming entrepreneurs. This pattern suggests increased learning about administrative functions, and the growing desire to shape the course of an organization, culminating in the creation of one’s own organization.

Another progression was a change in geographical order of magnitude: moving from local concerns, to state or regional, then to national and finally to an international level of interest. Esther Peterson, former advisor on consumer affairs to Presidents Johnson and Carter, started her career as a local union organizer, moved up to state and regional positions, worked on a national level, and at 87 was the Consumer’s Union’s international representative to the U.N.
 
What About the Future?
In a long-lived society, inevitably more people will make career changes during the course of a lifetime, simply because they have more time available in which they can master and grow beyond a given job or career. Of course, not everyone will have multiple careers; some will stay in the same career all their lives.

A cause for real concern is the paradox that, at a time when human beings are living longer than ever—and remaining youthful and in good health, American corporations and businesses are going in the opposite direction. They are downsizing and early-retiring people out of the workforce in their 50’s or even their late 40’s.

This is a dysfunctional trend in a society where there are so many people who may want to continue working beyond the conventional retirement age, and who have much skill, experience, and knowledge to contribute.

It also raises the question of how effective a company can be if a large segment of our population is over 50, while the majority of the company’s employees are under 50. A workforce that is predominantly younger may not understand or be able to serve effectively the needs of a mature consumer group.

It seems to me that there must be some correction in the negative attitude of corporations towards maturity if companies wish to remain viable. The research of University of Pennsylvania psychologist Frank Landy has shown that mature workers play roles that are different from those of younger workers, and that a workforce with a broad spectrum of ages functions better than a workforce with a narrow age spectrum.

Another related change is the disappearance of the longstanding “psychological contract” of loyalty between the worker and the corporation, which so long was a foundation for American worklife.

For the most part, the people in the Long Careers Study who were able to continue doing work that they loved at older ages had made themselves independent. Their identity as work-ers did not depend on a company but on their own skills and expertise. Frequently they had an individual practice—as a lawyer, artist, doctor, writer, etc.—or they formed their own business.

In a long-lived society, until the prevailing age prejudice has diminished or disappeared, every one of us should have as a goal to achieve the kind of professional, psychological, and financial independence that will enable us to continue working for as long (or short) a time as we choose.

Then perhaps we will be able to say—as Norman Cousins remarked when he was in his early 70’s—“I find that now I’m using everything I’ve ever learned—all of it together at the same time, and more effectively than I could ever have done at any earlier time in my life.”

Lydia Bronte, Ph.D., is the author of The Longevity Factor: The New Reality of Long Careers and How They Are Leading to Richer Lives, Harper/Collins. This piece is an excerpt from Targeting the Job You Want