Many freelancers and other self-employed Americans plan to continue working even after they retire — and many of them will have to because they’re not saving nearly enough to live on while retired, according to the findings of a new study recently released by the nonprofit Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies (TCRS).
“The whole idea of retirement seems to be a lot less relevant” to self-employed workers, who like the flexibility self-employment offers and being their own boss, Catherine Collinson, its CEO and president, told ThinkAdvisor on Monday.
Sixty-two percent of self-employed Americans plan to continue working while they’re retired and only 26% of the self-employed are “very much” looking forward to retirement, the study “Self-Employed: Defying and Redefining Retirement” showed.
Sixty-eight percent of the self-employed intend to work beyond age 65, including 40% who expect to retire after age 65 and 28% who don’t plan to ever retire, TCRS said.
Among the self-employed who plan to retire after age 65 and/or continue working in retirement, their reasons for doing so are more often healthy-aging related (83%) than financial (73%). The most-cited reasons were to be active (59%), keep their brain alert (56%), enjoy what they do (54%) and want the income (54%).
The number of self-employed people who plan to continue working in their retirement years was surprising, Collinson said. But she told ThinkAdvisor: “If anything, the self-employed may have a false sense of security. Given that they’re self-employed and they’re successful in what they do, they may be overly optimistic about how long they will be able to continue working or that their business will be viable, and retirement could very well come sooner than planned or expected.”