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(Sun, The (Lowell, MA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Oct. 1--There's an old saying that nobody lies on their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time at the office.
That little chestnut might not apply to Mike Demaras, though.
"I enjoy it, every minute of it," said Demaras, a 78-year-old senior sales consultant at Enterprise Bank. "I'll do it as long as I'm physically able and the bank wants to keep me on."
Demaras has plenty of company, according to a survey released in April by the MetLife Mature Market Institute. Research revealed that 37 percent of 66- to-70-year-olds are either working or looking for work, as are 60 percent of 60- to-65-year-olds and 78 percent of 55- to-59-year-olds.
Among the oldest age bracket, 72 percent of employees cited the desire to "stay active and engaged" as a primary reason to work.
Demaras was without a job only once, when he left Shawmut Bank in 1990 during a severe downturn in the banking industry. He was old enough, and financially secure enough, to retire -- but he didn't.
"It's a funny feeling," Demaras said. "All of a sudden you say, 'I don't have a job, what do I do?' I was kind of lost."
Demaras ended up working for Goodwill Industries, the WCAP radio station and the Sheraton hotel in Lowell, before landing at Enterprise, where he's worked three days a week for nearly nine years.
Not all elderly workers are just doing it to stay busy, though. Some still need the cash -- whether it's to pay the bills, pad their nest egg, or fund leisure activities.
Emile Desrochers, 74, of Dracut, worked two jobs for 14 years as a young man to support his family, then continued working full time as a school custodian until the mid-1990s. He now puts in about 25 hours a week as an attendant at the Davidson Street parking lot on Lowell.
Desrochers said he and his wife use the money to take vacations.
"We take trips to Florida, we went to Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Italy," he said. "We had seven children. We never were able to do it when we were young."
Andy Estruth of Boston College's Center for Retirement Research predicts that more and more people will be working past the traditional retirement age, with lifespans increasing, pension plans being phased out and Social Security benefits potentially dwindling. According to Estruth, the average retirement age for men has hovered at around 63 since 1980, but he projects that age will soon rise into the mid-60s.
"We think more and more people will find it important for their retirement-income security to lengthen their work lives a bit," Estruth said.
"Need(ing) income to live on" was the top reason for staying in the workplace cited by 55- to-65-year-olds in the MetLife survey.
As more older workers begin to stick around for a few extra years, services are popping up to match those people with potential employers.
"There are 77 million baby boomers that just started retiring," said Patrick Rafter of RetirementJobs.com, a Wellesley-based Web site that launched in May. "They're not going to have the conventional retirement our grandfathers did. They need some revenue, and they also want to keep their minds active (and) stay social."
Gunvor "Gunnie" Davis, 85, refers to herself as "semi-retired" -- she still works 20 hours a week at Wilmington Builders Supply.
"I just fill in and do whatever is necessary," Davis said. "It's a little bit of everything -- general office work. I go because I enjoy it. I've been very, very happy there all these years."
Davis has lived in Wilmington all her life, and worked at the company for more than 64 years. Her husband passed away 10 years ago, and she has no children.
"I live alone, so why should I stay (at home) all day long?" she said. "I think it's rare. Most people can't wait to retire to get away from their work."
Warren Muldoon, 74, of Lowell, celebrated his 50th anniversary with Verizon Communications Inc. earlier this year.
"Some people have been talking retirement since they were 25," said Muldoon, a central-office switchman. "I never thought that way. I figured I'd just keep going and going ... sixty-five came and it just bypassed."
Like Demaras and Davis, Muldoon, a lifelong bachelor, said he could retire now and not worry about money. He's sticking around purely because he wants to.
"It's a great company and that's really part of why I'm still working," he said. "I've talked to people who have retired, and the first three months or so they say it's great, then they get a little bored."
According to a Pew Research Center survey released last week, retirees are no longer content to accept their gold watch and pension, and fade into the sunset. More than three quarters -- 77 percent -- of today's workers expect to work for pay after they retire, the survey found, and the majority of those people will do so because they want to, not because they have to. This appears to be a major change in attitudes -- in a survey earlier this year from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, just 27 percent of current retirees said they had ever worked for pay after retirement.
Demaras, who in a little over a year will celebrate both his 10th anniversary with Enterprise and his 80th birthday in a matter of months, said his work keeps him vigorous.
"I urge people to rethink retirement," Demaras said. "I don't want to wind up on a couch with a clicker watching Oprah Winfrey at four o'clock in the afternoon."
Demaras said he still gets to spend plenty of time with his three sons and six grandsons, and he's been with his second wife for 22 years. They spend January, February and March at a place down in Delray Beach, Fla. Three months is more than enough for Demaras, who has a measure of distaste for the Sunshine State.
"There are too many old people down there," he said.
To see more of The Sun, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.lowellsun.com.
Copyright (c) 2006, The Sun, Lowell, Mass.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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