Not as true for people in technical fields, the author, while smart and accomplished is a social scientist and musician. One interesting idea he mentions is that older, tenured researchers' productivity goes down and universities would love to move budget-hogging oldsters into teaching. Unfortunately, there's not much glory in teaching even though it's precisely the area where experience is valuable.
Work peak and professional decline (2019)
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Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)
#22One of the most productive engineers I knew (who I’m guessing will read this) was in his 60s when I met him. He’s since “retired” and helped a company obtain a $1B valuation. Similarly, my 85 year old grandfather still doesn’t own a wheelbarrow and will move stone, dirt, etc every summer. His motto is “keep moving”, I don’t think there’s really anything else to it. Yes you will slow down, but stay engaged and motivat…
Mine wasn't that extreme, but my grandfather was laid low by mesothelioma less than a month after his last day tending his gardens in his mid 80s, and his father in law was doing it until the night before he died, also his mid 80s. My other grandfather took my grandmother out to eat and dance every weekend. He died of spinal cancer in his mid 80s, but she's still around at 104.
Similar story here, my grandfather played Chamber music with his friends (he played cello) twice a week well into his 90s. He barely lasted weeks after he became too frail to play music.
Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)
#23I wonder why when s*it hits the fan, the most senior and experienced are always on the line fixing stuff. I am in my 40 and the only thing I have noticed is steady increase of my paycheck and responsibilities. I can't really complain.
The software industry is now in a somewhat unique historical position in that software is now bigger and more complex than ever before and written in largely the same manner as it was ~20 years ago. Many companies are built through backend web services running on commodity or cloud hardware running linux. Historically the kind of software that was being written at the largest firms changed every 10 years from mainframes to PCs to mobile etc.
While I haven't seen it formally studied, I'd expect software salaries to keep pace with the scale/value provided by the technology and how influential an engineer can be on a given software stack.
Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)
#24[deleted]
Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)
#25Related: The notion of "retirement" is a relatively recent invention. Traditionally, when you were too old to work the farm or prove the theorem (sorry, cognitive decline is a well-documented thing, and tends to coincide with physical decline[1]), you would "retire" to a productive life in less-demanding pursuits: caretaking of the grandkids, woodworking, food preservation, writing, etc. It's important to maintain ho…
No reason you can't pursue your hobbies and pop metformin :)
Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mine wasn't that extreme, but my grandfather was laid low by mesothelioma less than a month after his last day tending his gardens in his mid 80s, and his father in law was doing it until the night before he died, also his mid 80s. My other grandfather took my grandmother out to eat and dance every weekend. He died of spinal cancer in his mid 80s, but she's still around at 104.
Similar story here, my grandfather played Chamber music with his friends (he played cello) twice a week well into his 90s. He barely lasted weeks after he became too frail to play music.
Sounds like a good way to go. Having a lifespan that ends soon after a steep decline in healthspan is what I'm shooting for.
Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)
#27One of the most productive engineers I knew (who I’m guessing will read this) was in his 60s when I met him. He’s since “retired” and helped a company obtain a $1B valuation. Similarly, my 85 year old grandfather still doesn’t own a wheelbarrow and will move stone, dirt, etc every summer. His motto is “keep moving”, I don’t think there’s really anything else to it. Yes you will slow down, but stay engaged and motivat…
Ultimately, the data for things like this boils down to anecdotes over a wide distribution.
Some people flourish with age; some don't. Each individual's situation arises from a confluence of factors, some within their control (lifestyle, attitude, attention to professional development) and some outside their control (industry changes, ageism, health).
To contribute an anecdote from my own experience: I once worked at a consultancy with a large number of recent grads and one engineer who must have been in his 60s. Through a combination of hard-won expertise and a soft-spoken humility and sense of humor, he had the quiet admiration of all the young people in the office, to the point of coworkers privately raving to me about how great he was to work with.
Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)
#28I'm 30 and it's already happened. The spoils of being tracked into low-paying, dead-end work.
Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)
#29There's no real data behind this article. It's basically ageism fueled by self-doubt.
I came to say something similar but less succinct. I've been in a transitional state career-wise, partially by choice, but I think there's two major factors not really mentioned by the article, and in fact, factors I think the article reinforces. The first is ageism, like you say. But I think ageism is a lot more subtle than other things, because it's not only an assumption of age-related decline, but more generally…
What a trashy article. A lot of elderly Americans, including in the upper middle class, never retire due to Medicare being inadequate. You can quite literally save millions for retirement as an individual, and have coverage for drugs and treatment under Medicare, and still run out of money due to having to pay extortionate prices for covered drugs.
This line in the article is quite revealing and strange, contextually: "Maybe not. Though the literature on this question is sparse, giftedness and achievements early in life do not appear to provide an /insurance policy/ against suffering later on. "
I personally have 2 rare neurological diseases affecting my peripheral nervous system and I require an orphan drug, a blood product, that was covered under Medicare Part D when I lived in America. If I only had traditional Medicare in America, I would be liable for Medicare Part D Catastrophic Coverage Limits, and I would be forced to pay $50,000+/year total for all of my medical care under Medicare.
Technically, yes, I can get a Medicare Advantage plan, which has an out-of-pocket limit. The problem is that the vast majority of these plans are HMOs, and that does not go well with rare disease. Also, one of the rare diseases that I have is very rare, with case reports and cohorts at best in the medical literature. So, if I want to stay alive (like it is a choice?), I really cannot be on an HMO.
By the way, 7-8% of the general population collectively has some sort of a rare disease. There are about 8,000 or so rare diseases. So, it is not uncommon to have a rare disease.
Also, if you have cancer, or are likely to get cancer (elderly, perhaps?) having an HMO via a Medicare Advantage plan is not a good idea if you likewise want to stay alive.
The problem is that once you are on a Medicare Advantage plan, you basically cannot go back to traditional Medicare. This is because Medigap plans (Medicare Part B Supplemental plans) allow medical underwriting even after the Affordable Care Act went into effect, unless you live in 4 US states! So, you basically can never get a Medigap plan again after switching to a Medicare Advantage plan. It is, quite literally, a deadly, but not well known error that Americans make when they are on Medicare.
This is one of the top reasons why I left the US and never plan on living there ever again, even if I have to file and pay taxes as a US citizen. I naturalized and acquired another citizenship over the US healthcare system.
Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)
#30Given the hack job that is AEI, I think the author's professional decline arrived much, much sooner than even he thought.