Tell a liberal “the workforce participation rate is at an all time low”.
Their conditioned response will be “it’s because people are retiring!”
And there’s a grain of truth in that. It’s just that many of them are retiring 10, 20 or 40 years early.
Retirement is a word that has as many subjective meanings as there are retirees. I heard people who referred to themselves as “retired law enforcement” after working for 10-12 years, then leaving for another line of work while in their middle ages. “Retired military” is sometimes used by those who were in for relatively short terms, too.
Conversely, I am familiar with one who after 30+ years left his field of endeavor in his mid-50’s due to non work-related back problems, who is uncomfortable being “retired.” Instead he uses the term “unemployed.” To him, the idea of retiring before the mid-60s is obscene, voluntarily or not.
It’s an odd word now days when there are many optional way to do it …
I think being retired carries, for some, a more honorable connotation that “I quit”, “I used to work there”, or “I couldn’t take it any more …” (or they couldn’t take me …).
I thought it was because they were shy …