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Can you picture yourself at 80? What will you look like then? Where will you live? What interests will you cultivate? Ideally, what do you want your everyday life to be like?
These are some of the types of questions that might spark new ideas about your future and could eventually lead to developing specific plans, according to Martha Deevy, senior research scholar and director, financial security at the Stanford Center on Longevity. In one example of an effective exercise, people are asked these kinds of leading questions about themselves in old age then asked to write a paragraph from that point of view as a method of making the future and the idea of aging more concrete.
“Whatever gets someone into the mindset and connected with that older person self seems to result in a desire to change behaviors,” Deevy says. “In some cases where it’s been tested it really does change behaviors.”
Deevy, who as a panelist also helped advise Prudential’s micro-site, talks with me about how Millennials are planning for their future differently, the advantages of thinking about yourself as an older you and how to overcome the challenge of thinking about aging when it’s a topic most of us would rather avoid.
What follows is a transcript of our conversation, edited for clarity and length.
Elizabeth Harris: What is the biggest obstacle in thinking about aging and specifically for millennials planning for old age?
Martha Deevy: Research shows that regardless of how old you are, you really can’t see more than 10 years ahead. Even if you’re talking to a 70-year-old about what 85 looks like. It’s not just an issue of the young. There’s been a bit of research that you may be aware of over the last couple of years that has looked at getting people to see and understand themselves as an older person. That actually has had some effect in how they think about preparing themselves.
Harris: I’ve seen some of the use of literally picturing yourself aging.
Deevy: Hal Hershfield did an immersive aging experience that was 3-D and Tamara Sims did a study with a Baltimore community college where all they did was see an aged avatar of themselves. And that seems to have changed their thinking about preparing for retirement. It’s kind of sticky — meaning it doesn’t just dissipate after they see it — getting people to not only think about themselves as an older person but also an increased story about themselves.
Harris: So what will the 80-year-old millennial look like?
Deevy: Millennials are facing a radical change from any other previous generation. If you look at prior generations there have been successive social changes all along. What hasn’t changed interestingly is this idea of the American ideal when you get married, have a first kid, when you buy a home and when you retire. That hasn’t changed in generations. Yet no other generation, except the silent generation has ever met the American ideal.
I’m a young Baby Boomer and I have a 15-year-old daughter and I remain optimistic that these generations will figure out how to navigate it. I deal with college students all the time and not only to talk about how they feel about their futures but so what are you going to do? How do you think you’re going to live your life differently? Certainly we at the Center of Longevity, we believe we’ve been given 20 more years that we’ve somehow decided to tack onto the end of life. So people should think about those extra 20 years in the prime of life. What would you do with those 20 years when you’re healthy and fit and still engaged? So thinking about different life courses. Why does all education seem to end 65? Why do we work, work, work, and only at the very end of life do we feel we can step out for a little while?
Laura Carstensen, who is the founder of the center and a psychologist and gerontologist talks about these new life cycles where early in life and in the middle of life people will step out legitimately and with confidence to explore new interests and maybe step back into career number two or number three. That becomes the norm and I think the millennials are on course to figure out how to make it happen.
Harris: If you’re not thinking about that future—even a very distant future self — then a plan won’t suddenly materialize. It’s not like it will just happen going back to school or as you say stepping out of a career or back into one. How can we think about the future in a less abstract way?
Deevy: You start with an, ‘Imagine if.’ If you knew this was going to be your lifespan, ideally how would you want to live it ? It comes down to having not a road map but some sense of what the options might be. And I think millennials — if they think ‘I’m going to have two or three careers — and it may not be with an employer that has a retirement plan — then how do I create my own retirement plan?’
Harris: So it comes back to the practical?
Deevy: Well it does. And when we’re talking to students, the era of personal responsibility is upon us since the early 80s and in a way entitlement programs are relatively recent. Envisioning what you think the possibilities will be and then getting down to the practicalities of ‘What am I going to do about it?’ Millennials are interested in saving for retirement. In fact a study we just released in January shows more millennials are saving for retirement earlier than in any other generation. More young people are graduating from college than ever before which is great. But I also think parents and students need to be realistic about the debt they take on and the career opportunities they’re pursuing. And that’s a different kind of conversation than my parents had with me.
Harris: I wondered too what might the effect be of stories or conversations within families? Is there an advantage in talking with parents or grandparents? They certainly had to deal with planning for the future even if they didn’t face the same issues. Have you seen anything that looks at conversations across generations also creating more of a sensitivity about an older self, or is it more effective thinking about yourself?
Deevy: This is a study we’d love to do. We believe there is great intergenerational influence and suspect it is even more influential when it’s a couple of generations skipped — millennials talking with a grandparent. There is some anecdotal evidence — ‘The New York Times’ did an interesting series where they actually sent students out to talk with people who had retired. The students’ reaction was really interesting. It was, ‘Wow, that causes me to think differently.’ So we think there’s great power in storytelling and it really comes down to personalizing that elder experience. An avatar is one way of doing it. Maybe meeting someone you can connect with is another way to do it.
Harris: There are intersections of health and financial wellness in your area — they’re very often tied together and if you can think about a healthier future in all of those ways it would seem to create a better outlook.
Deevy: One thing that will change with time is more and more people are entering their 70s and into their 80s healthy and active and engaged so there are more and more examples of ‘No, that’s not unlikely. I know my grandmother’s 80 and drives meals on wheels.’ So think for younger generations the idea of being in your 70s and 80s and healthy and active and engaged, it won’t be an exception. But I think also reinforcing that in order to arrive in that age physically fit you probably have to invest in a little bit of work along the way. A lot of the work we do at the Center — I run a financial security program looking at behaviors getting people to save differently my colleague Ken Smith looks at the same behaviors to get people to walk more.
Harris: Where is that overlap?
Deevy: We look at how do social norms get people to save more? How do financial incentives to save more get people to take on more healthy behaviors? We’re all interested to get people to do something differently.
Harris: What would you say to a reluctant millennial who might have the desire as you said to save, but maybe faces, as many of us do, some real challenges in doing so? What would be the takeaway for trying to think and develop some kind of plan that is more sympathetic to that future self?
Deevy: I’m an advocate if you make interim financial decisions on the path to retirement you’ll likely arrive at retirement. So I’m a fan if you do have an employer plan get in it. But think about the next significant financial milestone you want to achieve don’t think about retiring at 70. ‘But do I want to get out of debt? Do I want get enough money to buy a house?’ Think about, ‘How do I get to something that’s within a window I can get my head around?’ If young people, recognizing that they have a long runway at that point, can make good interim steps the odds that they will find themselves either one creating a habit that will serve them well. Or two, arriving at making responsible decisions all the way and ending up with a nest egg, I think are more likely than if somebody says, ‘Ok I’ve got to save $2 million for retirement. How the heck am I going to do that?’
