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‘Will I ever retire?’: millennials wonder what’s on the other side of middle age (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 6 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
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Claire*, 42, was always told: “Follow your dreams and the money will follow.” So that’s what she did. At 24, she opened a retail store with a friend in downtown Ottawa, Canada. She’d managed to save enough from a part-time government job during university to start the business without taking out a loan.

For many years, the store did well – they even opened a second location. Claire started to feel financially secure. “A few years ago I was like, wow, I actually might be able to do this until I retire,” she told me. “I’ll never be rich, but I have a really wonderful work-life balance and I’ll have enough.”

But in midlife, she can’t afford to buy a house, and she’s increasingly worried about what retirement would look like, or if it would even be possible. “Was I foolish to think this could work?” she now wonders.

She’s one of many millennials who, in their 40s, are panicking about the realities of midlife: financial precarity, housing insecurity, job instability and difficulty saving for the future. It’s a different kind of midlife crisis – less impulsive sports car purchase and more “will I ever retire?” In fact, a new survey of 1,000 millennials showed that 81% feel they can’t afford to have a midlife crisis. Our generation is the first to be downwardly mobile, at least in the US, and do less well than our parents financially. What will the next 40 years will look like?

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[-] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

What's a "zero day" in this context?

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Zero day is the day a city runs out of water and must literally truck it in.

[-] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Gotcha, thank you!

this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
647 points (98.4% liked)

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