This article is prompted by articles in print and on television about women choosing to 'opt out' of promising careers, especially in the corporate and legal professions. In her book, Opting Out?: Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home, Pamela Stone describes the struggle of career-oriented women who feel pressured to make a choice between family OR career in a business world that is structured around the male life course.

Questions of whether or not these women are truly informed about their choices, and the long-term implications of the decisions they make, draw attention to 'informed choice' as it relates to retirement.

The world of work used to be dominated by a male work model that is divided into three distinct stages: education, work, and retirement. A man had a career that was usually tied to one employer, whether blacksmith or banker, and spent a lifetime working to his highest level of competency.

He then retired, usually with a pension. This pattern established a cultural norm of working to retirement age, and then enjoying a period of leisure and gentle decline into old age.

The world of work for women has never been that simple, and a female work model is more likely to be broken into various stages of education, interspersed with periods of motherhood or family care, and set within a fractured work history of part-time, full-time, or temporary labour.

Only thirty years ago in Bermuda, if a woman became pregnant, she was expected to leave her place of employment without any paid maternity benefits, and if she returned to work there was no guarantee that she would resume working where she left off. Indeed, she often started a few rungs down the ladder and pay scale if, in fact, she had been able to climb any rungs in the first place.

Baby Boomers broke the work and motherhood moulds in the 1970s, demanding paid maternity leave, job security, and quality affordable child care among other benefits. Unfortunately, while research shows that mixing parenthood and work has little effect on male life satisfaction, the same cannot be said for women.

The prime career-building years for men are also the prime child-bearing years for women. As a result, some women feel obliged to either 'opt out' of work and give up their own financial independence in both the short and long term, or 'opt out' of motherhood, as the declining birth rates in developed countries show.

Baby Boomers are now forcing change in our understanding of retirement, in that the standard age of 65 for retirement is not necessarily a viable option today, for several reasons. First, work has changed from the male-dominated, industrial era to the more gender-neutral information age of the 21st century. Information-age work is not hard physical labour, and workers of both sexes can continue well beyond the age of 65.

Second, both men and women are living longer, and being forced into retirement at age 65 is not an informed choice when a long life, eroding pension income, and vanishing health care benefits are put into the mix.

Finally, Baby Boomers want to work and retire on their terms. They want flexible, phased retirement options. They often want to down-size jobs and de-stress their lives by working part-time, flexitime, or in concentrated blocks of time with equally concentrated blocks of leisure.

They want retirement jobs, bridge jobs, and post-retirement employment without being forced to lose their pension or health insurance benefits. They do not want to be forced into retirement before they are ready, with a resulting loss of income, benefits, social interaction and work satisfaction.

Baby Boomers broke the motherhood mould, although women still have challenges balancing family and career. Baby Boomers will also break the retirement mould, and employers who acknowledge and embrace a changing and ageing workforce will benefit from worker loyalty, retention of skills and experience, and a more gradual transfer of corporate DNA to the next generation.

To do this, Baby Boomers and employers need to understand their options, and make informed decisions about their future.

Marian Sherratt is Executive Director, Bermuda Council on Ageing. She writes on issues concerning ageing each fortnight in The Royal Gazette. Send email responses to info@bdaca.org.