On a dull Tuesday morning, the supermarket café feels surprisingly busy for a weekday. In one corner, close to the heated ready-meals counter, a familiar picture unfolds. A woman in her late sixties, hair carefully tied back, moves groceries across the scanner with the smooth confidence of someone who has done this countless times. Her name is Anne. Officially, she retired three years ago.
She trades jokes with a younger colleague, accepts an extra shift through an app, then scrolls through her banking app during her break. Her pension handles the essentials. But rent, electricity bills, and small presents for the grandchildren? Those come from the uniform she wears four mornings a week.
This situation is no longer rare. It has become a quietly expanding way of life.
Retired, yet still clocking in: the growth of the “cumulants”
Step into a supermarket, a hospital front desk, or a customer service center and take a closer look. Many of the faces welcoming you belong to people who are technically retired. These are the “cumulants”: older adults combining a pension with part-time work, sometimes discreetly, sometimes without hiding it at all.
They are not simply trying to fill empty days. They are trying to make it to the end of the month. And with every extra shift, they are quietly redefining what retirement now looks like.
Gérard, 71, spends his summers directing cars at the entrance of a seaside campsite. After forty years as a mechanic, he imagined peaceful days by the water with a fishing rod. Then energy bills rose, grocery costs surged, and the pension he once trusted suddenly felt insufficient.
So each June, he pulls on a reflective vest, guides vehicles into place, and earns a few hundred extra euros each month. He jokes with holidaymakers, but the calculation behind his choice is serious. Across many Western countries, the share of retirees returning to work has doubled or even tripled over the past twenty years.
The causes are straightforward. People live longer, yet pensions have not kept pace. Housing remains costly, food prices continue to climb, and health expenses loom in the background. Many retirees also supported their children financially for years, dipping into savings meant for later life.
The result is a harsh equation: either eliminate almost every small pleasure, or keep working. For many “cumulants”, it no longer feels like a choice between rest and work, but between dignity and constant worry. This trend is less about staying busy and more about staying financially stable.
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How retirees manage a working-retirement routine
Those who continue working often begin cautiously. They look for small, local jobs that require only a few hours a week. Cleaning schools, assisting in libraries, making daytime deliveries, or looking after children. Over time, patterns emerge.
They prioritize flexible contracts, avoid night shifts, and arrange schedules around medical appointments or family time. Some “cumulants” even design their weeks carefully: two days for paid work, two days for family, and one reserved entirely for themselves. It creates structure in a stage of life that once promised total freedom.
The main risk is agreeing to too much. At first, extra income feels like relief. Bills are covered. Dining out becomes possible again. Then a supervisor asks for an additional shift, a coworker calls in sick, and suddenly a 68-year-old is working close to full-time hours, with joints and muscles that protest.
Many also underestimate the strain of constant social interaction: impatient customers, systems that change every few months, or managers decades younger speaking in unfamiliar jargon. The body remembers every year when standing all day becomes routine again.
Maria, 69, works reception at a sports club three afternoons a week. “I accept work that respects my age,” she says. “No nights, no weekends, no heavy lifting. If that’s a problem, I leave. I already gave forty years.”
- Choose roles that value experience over speed, such as reception, tutoring, mentoring, or administrative support.
- Clarify schedules, breaks, and physical demands before committing.
- Check how additional income affects pensions or taxes to avoid unpleasant surprises.
- Keep at least one day fully free from work and family responsibilities.
- Discuss fatigue, sleep, and pain openly with a doctor once work resumes.
More than money: what this shift reveals about retirement
Listening closely to “cumulants” reveals something deeper beneath the financial pressure. Many express a fear of becoming invisible. Even tiring work keeps them connected to daily life. People greet them by name, ask for help, and rely on their judgment. That sense of usefulness does not appear on a payslip, yet it strongly shapes their decision.
Alongside this sits a quiet frustration: pension systems under strain, careers spent on low wages, years taken off to raise children that were never fully counted. Few continue working purely for pleasure. They do it because, without that extra income, the fridge would be emptier and sleep far less peaceful.
| Key point | Detail | Value for the reader |
|---|---|---|
| Choosing the right type of work | Favor roles with flexible hours and limited physical strain | Protects health while still boosting monthly income |
| Setting clear limits | Refuse nights, heavy lifting, or full-time if it’s too demanding | Reduces the risk of burnout or injury after retirement |
| Knowing the rules | Check how extra income affects pension, taxes, and benefits | Avoids bad financial surprises and optimizes what you really keep |
