May 2025 archive

May 15 2025

Book review: Retirement – the psychology of reinvention by Kenneth Shultz

Once again I am broadening the scope of my reading with Retirement – the psychology of reinvention by Kenneth Schultz. I picked up this book second-hand for only a few pounds from World of Books (link above) which might be counted as part of my retirement financial planning.

I was made redundant a couple of years ago but then worked as a contractor for UNOCHA for a little over a year, finishing at the end of 2024. Last month I turned 55. Potentially I am retired but intend on doing some consultancy work, so this book is very relevant to my current circumstances.

Retirement is divided into six chapters covering the (1) wider context of retirement, (2) early planning for retirement, (3) challenges in the lead up to retirement, (4) the transition from work to retirement, (5) the psychology of retirement, and (6) reinventing yourself in retirement. Each chapter is comprised of two page spreads with their own title, occasionally extending to four pages. The text is broken up into short chunks and is heavy with graphics. There are frequent references to other research, with key figures presented in infographics. All in all it is an easy read without feeling too patronising.

The context chapter talks about how work is often a very central part of our lives. Work is not only important for financial reasons, but also for social reasons and how we value ourselves. Also in the first chapter is a short discussion of the each of the decades of retirement from your fifties through to your eighties, Shultz notes that we are likely to live 10 years longer than our parents. Health plays a fairly prominent role: whilst our health potentially declines in retirement we have more time to address health and fitness issues.

For me the chapters on early planning and the lead up to retirement are a bit late and I won’t be alone in that. As many as 50% of people retire involuntarily, often for reasons of caring for another or their own illness, redundancy no doubt plays a significant part too. All of these apply to me to some extent. The IFS has shown that, in the UK, as many as 20% of men at 55 are economically inactive, with a proportion of those indicating they are retired (see page 8, figure 2 in this report).

As we move into retirement a degree of anxiety is not unexpected but often there is a honeymoon period for the best part of a year before boredom strikes. Sometimes this is a bit of a lonely mission – only 20% of couples retire in the same year, women often find retirement more difficult because they have done the majority of housework which they then continue to do in retirement so the event seems a bit of anti-climax.

Many of us hope to do some paid work in retirement, 34% according to one study but fewer – 14% – actually manage it. Not mentioned in this book but my observation from very limited data is that consultancy works for the former employees of larger companies which have some semi-formal scheme for consultancy with their own retirees. Mentoring also gets a mention here as valuable work for the retiree.

Others go for a full-on second career or start their own businesses, perhaps completely unrelated to their pre-retirement career. Volunteering is another option – it has very high retention rates, of 80%, for those that chose to volunteer for things that interest them.

Somewhat surprisingly one of the risks of retirement is the “busy ethic”, throughout our working lives busy-ness is valued and in retirement there is a tendency to try to replicate that. Typically retirees get most benefit from having a four or five hobbies/activities and those that work best are generally those they had some time for prior to retirement.

As stated in the subtitle this book is informed by psychology and there are numerous places where you can evaluate your personal preferences according to a variety of models. For example, in a section on coping with setbacks Schultz talks about fixed and growth mindsets which are informed by cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

Although the author is American the research he cites covers at least the UK, as well as the US. There is perhaps an over-emphasis on funding healthcare which belies his home country. This book makes very little mention of financial planning for retirement which is a whole, very large, topic of its own. Schultz mentions that paid financial advice is good for giving you confidence in your retirement plans.

Quite a lot of the fifth chapter is on relationships with other family members in retirement, these can be a bit strained as retirement perhaps puts you together rather more than you have been used to although I can’t help thinking that COVID has changed that, with families forced together full-time for an extended period and working from home more common in the aftermath. Grandchildren and (adult) children are mentioned throughout the book. I suspect more and more families will find themselves in the same position as me as an older parent – my son is 13, so going by our example we won’t have grandchildren for another 30 years and my son is in no position to look after me!

The final chapter talks mainly about the activities you might undertake in retirement including travel, various clubs (some retired friends are trying to persuade me to take up crown green bowling!), gardening, exercise, paid work (as mentioned above), and volunteering. There are some pages on time management and self-assessment here too.

I wish I’d read this book in my forties since a big chunk of the book covers the run up to retirement. It has prompted me to take action, at a leisurely pace, as I enter my first few months of retirement.

May 02 2025

Book review: It’s a Continent by Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata

I picked up It’s a Continent: Unravelling Africa’s History One Country at a Time by Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata at Waterstones, I was looking for books on Africa – preferably written by Africans – this was one of a very limited selection on the shelf.

The authors identify as British-Nigerian and British-Congolese, you can read a bit more about them on their podcast website here. As they say at the beginning of the book, they are not historians and this is not a history text book. They describe it as a collection of stories you never heard at school which I think is fair.

The book comprises short chapters on each of Africa’s 54 countries (and one disputed territory). They focus on one element of the country’s history – varying between pre-colonial history, the colonial period and post-independence. Often they are focused on an individual, typically they are only a few pages long . They are fairly relaxed in style with the odd sarcastic aside. I can imagine they follow the style of the podcast.

Of my recent reading about Africa, An African History of Africa was a sweeping fairly academic chronological history of Africa which was not really tied to individual countries, and covered the independence movements fairly briefly. Africa is Not a Country is a more thematic book which is focussed on the present. As the author’s say, It’s A Continent is the stories of history we hear at school but for Africa rather than for Britain. It has the effect of making the countries of Africa feel more distinct.

One of the recurring themes was how countries gained independence, this is where the many-country coverage helps because common features arise. The world wars, particularly the Second World War produced an expectation of some payback for the lives and resources committed by the colonies to the war on the side of their colonial masters. Secondly, the US/Britain Atlantic Charter of 1941, which envisaged a post-War future, led to the foundation of the UN in 1945 which had self-determination (i.e. independence ) at its core. Furthermore the colonising forces, generally France and Britain, could no longer afford to manage their colonies. Germany had been forced to give up its colonies (centred around Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon) in the aftermath of the First World War, they were transferred to France and Britain.

The post-independence pathway shows a rather depressing regularity too with independence heroes either turning slowly more and more authoritarian or being rapidly replaced by despots (often from the army, trained and backed from outside the country). Madimba and Ukata reference this in their glossary, referring to a Coloniser Handbook and a Despot Manual.

It’s easy as a Western European to look down on the imperfect democracies of Africa. However, we have our own share of conflicts in Europe. Since World War 2 there have been three dictatorships (Spain, Portugal and Greece) which ended (early) in my lifetime. Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union have broken up fairly violently, Czechoslovakia seems to have managed to split peacefully but this is exceptional. There are a number of secessionist movements in Europe. The US is currently demonstrating how young democracies are not immune to returning to authoritarian rule. To this Africa has the added difficulty of artificial borders created by colonisers, infrastructure designed to extract resources from countries rather than support its residents, deliberate divide and rule policies during the colonial period and post-independence interference either as part of the Cold War or by the pre-independence colonists.

Reading through the chapters there were a couple of surprises, it turns out that Russia briefly had a foothold in Africa via the town of Sagallo in Djibouti which was “acquired” by Nikolay Ivanovich Ashinov in 1885. Ashinov appears to have been a complete con man and Russia quickly lost Sagallo to the French.

I was also surprised to discover that their are two European cities in Morocco, Ceuta and Melilla which are heavily funded by the EU to prevent them becoming an entry point into Europe for African migrants. Unsurprisingly the Moroccans want them back.

One of the nice things about the book is its universal coverage, so as well as the big favourites like Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and so forth we hear of the small islands – Comoros, Seychelles, São Tomé and Príncipe, Cabo Verde, the Chagos Islands) and countries like Togo.

I was born in the seventies, I became politically aware around 1980 when the first wave of independence movements had passed and the final few were being completed – the formation of Zimbabwe was one of my earliest political memories. Over my lifetime the news stories from Africa have largely been of civil war, dictators and natural disaster (I’m including famine here, though that is rarely wholly natural). Britain largely sees itself as a fairly benevolent colonial power which is reflected in popular culture. Madimba and Ukata have a very different point of view which I believe is probably correct.

I enjoyed this book, to start with I was a bit put off by its casual style but it makes it rather engaging and readable. I am now curious about the foundation of the UN and its role in African independence movements.