How to Make Your Second Half of Life Its Best

Debra Whitman, author of "The Second Fifty: Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond" and chief public policy officer at AARP, wants to see a lot more done to help older Americans age better. But she's no fan of the term "successful aging."

Whitman told me that phrase troubles her because it describes reaching later life with a low probability of disease or without disease while being able to engage in your community.

"I worry about categorizing people as successful or not successful based on their health," she said, "especially in a world where ageism is so rampant and where there are a lot of barriers to health that aren't distributed across the population."

What Whitman is fond of, however, is helping people over 50 appreciate every moment. Capturing how you want to live today, she said, is the most important lesson of "The Second Fifty."

The book offers that lesson and others in seven chapters answering the big questions Whitman poses: How long will I live? Will I be healthy? Will I lose my memory? How long will I work? Will I have enough money? Where will I live? How will I die?

In the conversation we had about her book (edited here for space), Whitman — former staff director of the Senate Special Committee on Aging — talked about ways to make the second half of life more fruitful, as well as what employers and policymakers could do to help:

Next Avenue: You write about the importance of having a sense of purpose as we get older. How can purpose help us age?

Debra Whitman: Research shows that people with a higher sense of purpose have a lower risk of dying from any cause compared to people with a lower sense of purpose. Having a sense of purpose improves our health and even our cognitive ability.

How can people find purpose?

There are lots of ways. I get it through my work. But it could also be from taking care of somebody in your life. It could be having a pet. It could be volunteering in your community; studies show that the physical, mental and social activities with volunteering are all health and longevity boosters.

Many people want to work longer as they get older. You write that if policymakers and employers want to help, they need to better understand the barriers preventing people from working longer. Which barriers?

There's a lot of ageism in the labor market; so many people are pushed out before they want to. We've done many surveys that show the share of people who have experienced it themselves, or seen it, is really, really high.

There are also caregiver demands. People are often in a job they love and need the money, then they have a family member who needs them. The cost of long-term care and private care is so high that many people end up quitting their job to take care of a family member.

What can be done to address the barriers to working longer?

We can support people who have to do caregiving. Workplace flexibility goes a long way.

Many people want to work part-time or cut back their hours. Having a variety of ways that we can work and remain in the labor force, I think, is really good for older workers.

We also need to think about lifelong learning and making sure that people have the skills they need in a rapidly changing technological environment. . . . Often, we find employers don't offer job training to their long-tenured or older workers; they tend to offer it for younger workers.

Do you think employers are open to the idea of letting their older workers work part-time in retirement?

I think they're going to need to.

Some workplace experts have told me there's been less age discrimination by employers in recent years because the employers have needed workers. Are you seeing that?

I haven't seen the numbers change for people who are seeing age discrimination or experiencing it. But I am seeing an increase in the number of workers over age 50 looking for, or having to, work. We're almost twice as high as we were in the 1990s.

What should older people do if they want to keep working and are physically and mentally able to work?

Be proactive to look for job-training classes you can take either within work or on the outside.

Talk to your employer about the possibility of restructuring your job for part-time work.

You write that you're pretty confident Social Security will be there for people in the future, even though it's facing solvency issues. What makes you so optimistic?

I spent a decade in the Senate and every poll we've ever done with older people (at AARP) says Social Security is one of the most important programs to them. So, let's be clear: Social Security is not going bankrupt. It's not going away.

In 2035, the funds coming in will only be sufficient to pay about 80% of benefits. So, that means people will still get something, even if nothing is done. But I don't think Congress is going to do nothing and sit on its hands. The consequences are too big. I'm confident that something will happen.

I can't tell you what and I can't tell you when. And that's a problem because it means that I can't plan for my future. Most people can't plan for their future. We don't know how much we're going to get from Social Security and how much extra we'll need to save.

Do you prefer certain ways to address Social Security's solvency over others?

I'm not going to write out a plan for you, mostly because there's a wide range of policies out there.

You write about how other countries like Singapore are approaching aging. What can we learn from them?

In Singapore, there were two things I thought were pretty interesting and a good model.

The first is a national plan on aging, which isn't just unique to Singapore; many other countries have developed one. It's about looking across your health care system, your employment system, your transportation and housing systems, and saying: How can all of these work together to support an aging population?

Singapore has taken it very seriously. They've put resources behind it.

One of the parts of their plan was to create a better system of lifelong learning with a program called Skills Future, for the whole population. They survey employers to see what skills employers need and then offer training in those programs.

They also give a credit to take classes for everybody 25 and older. It's about 500 Singapore dollars, which is about 375 U.S. dollars.

They also developed silver academies that are particularly focused on older adults, understanding that mid-career people are some of the most in need of reskilling.

The U.S. government just came out with a strategic framework for aging. AARP came up with one, too. What'd you think of the United States' plan?

I'm encouraged that there's a bipartisan Congressional process for it, passed as part of the Older Americans Act.

It's really important is to look at all the factors the demographic change is going to impact. We need to think deeply of how we prepare for, and take advantage of, the opportunity.

Older people are the fastest-growing natural resource we have in this country. We need to treat them as such, make sure housing is accessible and that people can care for older adults and still remain working. We need to prioritize healthy aging.

All of those things can mean that we'll have a better future going forward, not just for current older people, but for every generation after this.

One of the things I enjoyed most in your book was when you related your life to the big questions you raise. You wrote that when you were thinking about those questions, it opened up new conversations with your husband about the dreams you both have for the future and the realities you face. Can you talk about that?

It was the first time I've ever used 'I' in anything I've written, so it was a little bit uncomfortable.

For the end-of-life conversations chapter, I learned that a lot of what I thought I knew was wrong — that just having an advance directive (a document outlining your preferences for medical care if you can't communicate them) was going to be useful.

I talked to a palliative care expert, Dr. Diane Meier, who said research shows that advance directives often aren't followed and don't improve quality of care. And many times, she said, you don't want them to be followed because you wrote them when you were healthy and couldn't anticipate what would come.

Her example was that many people checked the advance directive box: 'I don't want to be on a ventilator.' Then COVID hit and suddenly, in your fifties, you were put on a ventilator and hoped you were kept on that ventilator and that [the hospital staff] didn't read that checked box.

Rather than having an advance directive, Diane told me, it's much better to have a health-care proxy who can make decisions in the moment if you're incapacitated.

How optimistic are you that our nation will make changes you think are needed to help Americans age better?

I'm optimistic. I see forward momentum. I'm just frustrated at the pace of change.

I think we need to be doing more and we need to be doing more comprehensively. There's a big opportunity for change. Now's the time to do it.

Richard Eisenberg is the former Senior Web Editor of the Money & Security and Work & Purpose channels of Next Avenue and former Managing Editor for the site. He is the author of "How to Avoid a Mid-Life Financial Crisis" and has been a personal finance editor at Money, Yahoo, Good Housekeeping, and CBS MoneyWatch. Read More