In 1952, the average life expectancy at birth for Americans was 68.6 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control. By 2024, newborn Americans could expect to live to 79, on average. So it’s perhaps no surprise that the conversation about when corporate executives should retire has changed in the last three-quarters of a century, even if the standard age that most are expected to retire has not shifted much from 65.
But despite the prospect of limited time to enjoy retirement, Fortune’s Perrin Stryker wrote in 1952, “An American executive usually has a solid, built-in aversion to thinking about his old age” and dreads a “long, dull retirement.” This, Stryker pointed out, was a problem for companies: “Failure to retire old managers not only can stifle initiative, deaden morale, and cut efficiency all down the line; it can sink management in a bog of old ideas and over-conservative decisions. The bog may develop so gradually that managers easily mistake it for ‘tradition.’”
In her examination of the same issue in 2023, Fortune’s Lila MacLellan took a more nuanced view of older executives who stay at their desks—sometimes, like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway, well into their 90s: “Aging today is far from a singular experience,” MacLellan wrote. “For many, every passing year brings declines in cognition and physical mobility; for others, the changes are barely detectable. In fact, many researchers and aging experts argue that fretting over anyone’s age is both alarmist and ageist.”
Be that as it may, one thing has not changed: Encouraging successful, ambitious executives to step away from their life’s work can be a very touchy subject. In his 1952 piece, Stryker highlighted an innovative model for coaxing company leaders into retirement that companies might consider even today.
In Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co.’s “two-way retirement system,” executives over the age of 65 had to take an additional month of unpaid leave for every year they stayed on at their job. And as their yearly salary decreased to account for this reduction in time, their pension would increase, creating an incentive to step away from their roles at the chewing gum manufacturer, while accustoming workaholic executives to the concept of extended time off.
“The first results of the plan look good to the retirement committee,” Stryker wrote. “One executive earning more than $15,000 (roughly $182,000 today) seemed completely lost during his first month off last year, but this year, during his two months off, he reported he was beginning to enjoy life as a Florida beachcomber.”
