Ideally, they wouldn’t fully retire until their health declined to a point where full retirement was advisible.
I say that based on the experience of (US) federal judges. Although I’m simplifing, many could retire at 65 with full salary for life. But retirement is uncommon. Instead, judges take “senior status” which allows them to select their own caseload volume. [1] This allows their old seat to open up for a new appointee. Being at 100% until one’s early 80s certainly happens, while I’d say being at 50% at that point is fairly common.
What I discern from this is that if people in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s are provided with the opportunity to do work they find impactful and enjoyable, and to scale the volume of that work downward as they age, most of them prefer to keep working in a part-time capacity. And although I don’t have data to back this up, [2] I think most senior-status judges are happier than they would be on full retirement. That could be even more true for EAs; after a career focused on impact, spending all one’s time hitting the beach could feel . . . empty?
On the what’s good for EA side: senior-status judges do a significant fraction of all federal judicial work. Where mostly remote work is available, they are particularly useful at filling in when a court is short-staffed (due to delays in getting enough judges appointed and confirmed) or when there is enough work for (say) 1.2 judgeships in a court. I think those kinds of benefits could transfer to other contexts.
So all that is to suggest that a “Senior-Status EA” program could be a valuable way to tap into experienced retirement-age talent that would make the retirees happy.
Ideally, they wouldn’t fully retire until their health declined to a point where full retirement was advisible.
I say that based on the experience of (US) federal judges. Although I’m simplifing, many could retire at 65 with full salary for life. But retirement is uncommon. Instead, judges take “senior status” which allows them to select their own caseload volume. [1] This allows their old seat to open up for a new appointee. Being at 100% until one’s early 80s certainly happens, while I’d say being at 50% at that point is fairly common.
What I discern from this is that if people in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s are provided with the opportunity to do work they find impactful and enjoyable, and to scale the volume of that work downward as they age, most of them prefer to keep working in a part-time capacity. And although I don’t have data to back this up, [2] I think most senior-status judges are happier than they would be on full retirement. That could be even more true for EAs; after a career focused on impact, spending all one’s time hitting the beach could feel . . . empty?
On the what’s good for EA side: senior-status judges do a significant fraction of all federal judicial work. Where mostly remote work is available, they are particularly useful at filling in when a court is short-staffed (due to delays in getting enough judges appointed and confirmed) or when there is enough work for (say) 1.2 judgeships in a court. I think those kinds of benefits could transfer to other contexts.
So all that is to suggest that a “Senior-Status EA” program could be a valuable way to tap into experienced retirement-age talent that would make the retirees happy.
There is some financial incentive: working 25% of a full caseload gets the judge cost-of-living increases on top of that salary.
I did clerk for a judge who could have taken senior status a long time before they did.