Traditional retirement is so 20th century. The idea that we simply Switch OFF and sign out once we stop working is redundant, unnecessary and extremely bad for our health.

Unlike our parents and grandparents who were often exhausted by the time they stopped working, we have choices. No past generation has ever been as healthy nor as wealthy on reaching age 50 and over as are the Baby Boomers.

One of our options is to work past the usual retirement age, and as we learn in this video from Bloomberg Quicktake, it’s an option that’s now more realistic than ever.

Coincidentally, just as some of us aged over 50 want to work more, the world is running out of workers. The combination of increasing longevity and falling birth rates means the percentage of people aged over 65 will jump from one in 11 in 2019 to one in six by 2050.

That demographic time bomb creates opportunities for us, but also for the organisations that embrace an age-diverse workforce.

Up to now, people aged over 50 who wanted to continue working faced an ugly ageism that discriminated against us on the prejudice we were less capable, less agile and less cooperative than younger colleagues.

The example of BMW presented in the Bloomberg video proves the very opposite, and that’s even true in an industrial setting.

Associate Professor Christina Matz is from the School of Social Work at Boston College and her specialisation is productive ageing. Professor Matz says individuals in age-diverse teams are more engaged, more productive and less likely to leave.

And as for taking jobs away from the young, one study estimated that people aged over 50 working longer could generate up to £55 billion in the UK over three years. That’s £55 billion straight into job-creating consumption and / or inheritance.

Professor Matz she’s we need to think of new ways of working that allows people to phase slowly out of the workforce, most especially for those of us who need the income and access to health insurance that comes from paid employment.

For others, resetting our careers is about finding our true passion. Carol Fishman Cohen is CEO of iRelaunch, a specialist firm that helps people aged in their 40s, 50s and 60s back into the workforce.

Proving that Americans are unmatched when it comes language innovation, Carol calls her clients ‘relaunchers.’ Some of the people that Carol helps have already retired – they’re ‘unretiring.’

Carol says that ‘relaunchers’ have a more mature perspective, they know themselves better, and have a much better sense of how they can add value to an employer.

One ‘relaunch’ program is Returnships, the Baby Boomer equivalent of an internship for mid-career professionals that started on Wall Street where firms sought to entice older women back to executive roles.

Whether its Wall Street or Main Street, what’s beyond dispute are the physical and mental health benefits that come to us from staying active, and alert, and engaged for long as we can.

Paid employment is only one way to stay Switched ON, but there’s a myriad of others such as starting a business, mentoring others who start businesses and community work of all sorts.

Whatever we decide, it can’t be traditional retirement. Switching OFF is GIVING UP!