Warren Flick, a 67-year-old retired college professor, economist and lawyer, today announced the launch of a new blog, Later Living (www.laterlivingblog.com), placing him among a growing trend of older Americans embracing entrepreneurship after retirement.
Later Living, which aims to help the over-50 demographic navigate the complicated choices facing both current retirees and soon-to-be retirees, draws on Flick¹s professional expertise in both economics and law as well as his personal experiences as a husband, father and retiree to cover topics surrounding the last third of life, when people are either planning for retirement or are actually retired and trying to figure out how they might make it their own.
The blog emphasizes finance, economics and legal matters in later life, but also covers friendship, family, staying active in retirement, volunteering, and other topics.
³Later Living isn¹t just another blog about financial planning,² said Flick. ³I am interested in the array of changes and issues facing older people. And though I am more likely to see elements of the array through a financial or legal lens, I intend to reach toward those broader yet common problems of later living.
Flick represents a growing trend of retirees turning to entrepreneurship as a second act. About 20 percent of the entire over-50 workforce in the United States is self-employed, and one-third of those workers made the transition to self-employment after turning 50, according to a 2007 RAND Corp. study commissioned by AARP.
For 11 of the 15 years from 1996 to 2010, Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 had the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity of any age group, according to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
³There are a few reasons why I think this trend is happening now,² said Flick. ³But, the economy is a major factor. With high unemployment across the board and those age 50-plus having a harder time finding work after a layoff, people who believed they were prepared for retirement are now facing a lot of uncertainty.²
Discovering and Owning Retirement is the tagline on the Later Living masthead and Flick says it pretty much sums up what Later Living is all about.
³I think there are some misconceptions about what it means to retire,² he said. ³The popular view seems to be that retirement is easy. You just wake up one day and start golfing and bird watching. But the truth is, retirement, like any major life change, can be a harrowing experience if you don¹t have a good support system. My mission is to try to show people that they don¹t have to face these challenges alone. Later Living is about retirement, but not life at idle. It is a blog about perspective‹about finding some truth and mystery in ordinary life.²
For additional information, visit www.laterlivingblog.com.
