Helen Dennis
An encore career鈥攐ne initiated later in life鈥攊s usually not just about the money. Instead, this growing movement combines聽聽in service to the greater good. By marrying聽, the encore career is rooted in American tradition鈥攐ur history and values.
Volunteerism and vocation
Volunteers built this country and shaped American society. During colonial times, men pooled their efforts to clear land and raise barns; women helped one another with annual house cleaning. Volunteers established churches, donating land, materials, and money so their communities could have their own places to worship. In the 1600s, colonists in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York formed citizen fire brigades. Three and half centuries later, the United States is known as a society of volunteers. Continuous with the tradition of volunteerism is the desire for vocation鈥攆or聽work that has personal meaning and social resonance.
颁耻谤谤别苍迟濒测,听. As of 2010, they were聽聽to be providing about 8 billion hours of service a year, valued at $173 billion.
Just as volunteerism is central to American values, so is work. The American work ethic arose from the Puritan belief that hard work is an honor to God leading to a prosperous reward. According to the聽,听Americans work more than Europeans do. For better or worse, we take less vacation, work longer days, and retire later in life.
Entrepreneurship is another American ideal. For entrepreneurship to thrive, certain social conditions must exist: political stability and rule of law, absence of bureaucratic and regulatory barriers to incorporation, and incentives for people to invest their own capital in new businesses1. 聽We have them all, and older adults know it. The聽聽reports that聽Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 had a higher rate of entrepreneurial activity than those between the ages of 20 and 34.
Putting the pieces together
Decades ago, the nonprofit world attempted to launch initiatives somewhat similar to the current encore movement.
In 1976, the Volunteer Center of Los Angeles launched the nonprofit organization Second Careers. Its purpose was to steer business retirees into important and fulfilling volunteer jobs among community service agencies in Los Angeles. This project鈥檚 social purpose was evident; the pay was not.
In 1981, the Los Angeles Council on Careers for Older Americans morphed into the nonprofit organization Career Encores. Its purpose was to help older adults find jobs, through an array of employment services. Work for pay was present; social purpose was not.
Both of these organizations focused on encore work life but did so piecemeal, and neither exists today.
Not until the Baby Boom generation neared retirement did the concept of meaningful, entrepreneurial paid work with a social purpose ignite into a movement. Baby Boomers looked at the world of work and asked the same question raised by women in聽
The encore movement is a response to that question. This movement is聽a timely transformation of expectations as we age鈥攁n expression of Americans鈥� passion to solve social problems and of our willingness to reach for the brass ring, with all of the risks and rewards that attend the gesture.
The marriage of volunteering, work, and social entrepreneurship is a natural outgrowth of the American tradition of volunteerism and our work ethic. The time is right for encore careers. And so a new question arises: 鈥淲hat are our professional and personal roles in making this innovative movement a new root of American culture and values?鈥�