[api]

I’m in my 40s and have never believed retirement would be a thing for me unless I make a whole lot of money.

Retirement for all was an artifact of rapidly growing populations and shorter life spans. Back 50-100 years ago you had each young person supporting maybe 0.1 to 0.25 retired people, and a retirement age in the 60s meant you’d get a few years before now easily treatable heart conditions would kill you. (Everyone smoked too, which “helped” clear the retirement rolls.)

In a world with even a stable population (let alone a declining one) retirement isn’t viable. Or at the very least the age will be raised a lot. I could see 80 as a retirement age in 2050.

Honestly an institutionalized retirement age in the 60s today is unfair and exploitative toward young people. It’s generational economic cannibalism, stopping young people from establishing themselves to fund the old.