In his late fifties, a man named Ed Speedling decided to leave his work as a high-level health care administrator and find a job that would bring him into direct contact with homeless people. Now he has an important position with a nonprofit that tries both to relieve homelessness and to prevent it.

Sally Bingham married right out of high school and was still bringing up the youngest of three children when she decided to become an Episcopal priest. That meant she had first to go to college, starting at age 45, and then to a seminary. She now preaches regularly and serves as director of a project that brings together her faith and her active concern for the environment.

These people are two of the midlife job-changers who figure prominently in the new book Encore. Author Marc Freedman adds the subtitle: “Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life.”

Founder of the program “Civic Ventures,” Freedman has drawn much attention to new notions of retirement. His movement specializes in helping people middle-aged and older to discover new work that is both fulfilling to them as individuals and beneficial to society.

To put this new movement in perspective, it helps to know something about the history of retirement over the past 60 years. After World War II, no one had much idea of a role for retired people. Financial planners and marketers attempted to convince these men and women that they were living the American Dream; but these efforts went only so far.

But, starting in 1960, that situation was to change. A player who looms large in this history is Del Webb, the founder of Sun City in Arizona. He wanted to convince Americans that, after leaving work, they could indeed enter the Golden Age and be made happy by sports, hobbies, and other recreational activities in the friendly climates of the southwest and elsewhere.

This was the beginning of a new concept of retirement that spread across America. Retirement could become an “endless vacation,” filled with pleasurable activity.

As the millennium approached, however, the inadequacy of this model became evident. It has failed to provide the underlying meaning that is needed for long years of middle age and later life. And many retirees have found their income insufficient to support decades without working.

This spiritual and economic vacuum has prompted many people to seek work after retirement. Ideally, at least, that would be work which combines added income with personal meaning.

The old idea of “senior voluntarism” no longer suits a lot of people, especially the well-educated and healthy job seekers whose experience qualifies them for challenging work.

I myself admire the energy and ambition of the new breed of retirees, but I have also benefited greatly from the work of older volunteers in more traditional and less exciting roles.

Civic Ventures is riding high these days in gerontological circles, but it has its critics. Robert Hudson, the distinguished Boston University scholar, knows the program well. He has ably explained, how commentators on both the right and the left find fault with the program’s agenda. Like other such debates, it’s complicated.

Some conservatives feel wary of older people getting more involved in political issues. Following the philosophy of Civic Ventures, the retired people who have become employed again might be positioned to press for even more benefits from government than they have now.

Some liberals see Civic Ventures as elitist, a further expression of the “successful aging” school of thought. It would put a premium on well-being and might push to the sidelines those not privileged by good health and advanced education.

Some liberals also fear that large-scale involvement of elders might make government feel it less necessary to provide services to members of the older population. It would be a pretext for cutting back on social programs that respond to elders in need.

My own view inclines toward the second position. Though I welcome ways of getting retired people into satisfying and meaningful work, I am wary of social pressures making them feel worthless if they don’t seek such employment.
At the same time, I recognize that many of the retired have left work too early to sustain themselves financially and psychologically over what can be a long haul.

A feminist critique also merits attention. A scholar named Martha Holstein writes: “The expectation that our later years will bring a life of discipline and self-control primarily in the public sphere negates the value, place, and significance of what women do at home.”

And she asks: “Can the norms of civic engagement dignify both the 66- year-old Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the 79 year-old woman who lives in assisted living and recently told me ‘everything hurts?’”

But, as a wise woman friend, Catherine Bateson, reminds me: “You can’t cover everything in one set of recommendations.” Like her, on balance I welcome the Encore initiatives.

        Richard Griffin