Our latest research projects focus on the growing disconnect between pre-retirees and actual retirees as well as the unique challenges facing Gen X. You can download full reports below.
For more information on the research, media inquiries, upcoming events, and industry alliances, please support@retirementcoachesassociation.org
As you will see in the report, four of the most significant findings were:
As you will see in the report, four of the most significant findings were:
For more information on the research, upcoming events, and new industry alliances, please contact us at support@retirementcoachesassociation.org.
Fresh conversations. Better questions. Modern solutions for the longevity economy
What does 2026 have instore for people approaching retirement as well as those who are already in it?
Join the Retirement Coaches Association as they reveal their annual list of “Five Retirement Mega Trends” for professionals and organizations who work at the intersection of purpose, identity, caregiving, reinvention, housing, longevity, and community.
1) Creating Staged Launches and Proactive Landings
Two major social epidemics are shaping a new reality: it’s taking longer for young adults to “launch,” and it’s increasingly difficult to find care and support for aging Baby Boomers. This is showing up as a rise in multigenerational living and shared-home models that blend affordability, companionship, and care. It’s not just a housing story, it’s a lifestyle and transition story.
A major shift is under way where the narrative of “not launching” is changing to a “staged launch” that includes specific goals, roles, and healthy boundaries for young adults and their parents. Additionally, including aging grandparents into the mix of multi-gen housing is a proactive way to create soft landings that help maintain independence and connection rather than future contention and isolation.
Multigenerational households are normal in many cultures and as this trend continues to evolve, retirement professionals and coaches are uniquely positioned to help families build agreements, create role clarity, reduce conflict, and design living transitions that support dignity for all generations.
2) Acknowledging Identity Over Independence in Caregiving
Families often frame elder transitions as a story about independence. But the deeper fear for many older adults is losing identity, dignity, and meaning. This is a critical distinction because people can reduce independence without losing agency (maintain choice, voice, and a sense of self-worth) if the transition is structured correctly.
The overarching goal isn’t to force decisions, it’s to facilitate transitions. The key becomes helping older adults let go of one identity tied to their house and step into a new identity that still feels meaningful, supported, and safe.
This creates a powerful opportunity for coaches trained in transition planning, identity continuity, and family facilitation to help families reduce conflict, prevent crisis-based decision-making, and design multigenerational caregiving transitions.
3) Addressing Business Succession Gaps and Bottlenecks
Boomer-owned businesses are facing a succession crunch for three reasons: many owners don’t have a formal plan, family successors often don’t want the business, and external buyers are harder to find than most people assume
Many businesses are still founder-centric, where the owner is essentially the business. This changes the succession plan as the buyer isn’t acquiring an asset or cash-flow, they are buying the risk of losing customer and revenue when the owner retires. The issue at hand is that owners often delay building systems, processes, and clean financial reporting until it’s too late.
Further complicating the situation, for many owners, the business isn’t simply income; it’s identity, relevance, purpose, and legacy. That’s why the emotional side of succession can create procrastination, avoidance, conflict, and stalled exits. This trend creates an enormous opportunity for retirement coaches and transition coaches to work alongside exit planners, attorneys, and financial professionals to owners prepare emotionally, communicate clearly with family, and design a meaningful “life after business.”
4) Stepping Back from the Enrollment Cliff
Higher education enrollment at colleges and universities has been on a steady decline since its 2010 peak. As a result, higher ed is being forced to rethink who they serve and how they serve them. Many institutions are responding by developing new pathways for older adults and lifelong learners through age-friendly initiatives, multigenerational programs, and second-career models designed to support adults later in life.
This trend signals a major cultural shift in the concept of retirement because people want tangible ways to remain mentally active, stay socially connected, and engaged in meaningful work, learning, and contribution.
For coaches, this opens new doors to partner with universities to collaborate on curriculums focused on purpose planning, reinvention, and structured “next chapter” programs that blend learning with life design. It also has the potential to unlock new campus living models where retirement communities can spring up closer to campuses or multi-gen housing can take shape.
5) Finding and Practicing Community with Destination Events
One of the most universal retirement problems is that people are overwhelmed and living on autopilot. They may want change, but they’re trapped in momentum. Destination events are emerging as a high-impact structure to break that pattern: they create the time and space to reflect, plan, and build community with others who share the same concerns.
Unlike one-off seminars, retreats are carefully curated- providing an environment that promotes growth, gives space for vulnerability and will foster lasting relationships beyond experience They normalize worries, reduce isolation, and create peer support, which is something many people lose as they leave the workplace.
This trend will be driven primarily by Gen X as they get closer to retirement. The 80’s kids who were known to rely on each other for everything from after school care, transportation, protection, advice, emotional support and identity are going to rally once again as they embark on the retirement transition.
This longing for proximity over algorithms highlights the many opportunities available for lifestyle coaching- moving beyond the traditional one on one or workshop models and creating a more intimate and collaborative encounter.
What These Trends Have in Common
Each trend is essentially a call for a new kind of support, fresh conversation, better questions, and modern frameworks. These trends are also a direct opportunity for collaboration between retirement coaches, educators, advisors and organizations who work at the intersection of purpose, identity, caregiving, reinvention, housing, longevity, and community.
The opportunity to modernize the transition has never been greater. Please join us over the next week as we will focus on additional questions, insights, and solutions for each of the 5 mega trends.
To schedule an interview with RCA Co-founder Robert Laura, please email us at retirement.rca@gmail.com or call 888-267-1138
The Retirement Coaches Association is an international organization for professionals focused on the retirement transition. Responsible for creating and maintaining consistent standards and methods of practice while advocating for the humanization of retirement. We provide qualitative and quantitative research and are the most prominent source of industry certification, training, and programming as evidenced by our 6 best-selling books and premiere events and conferences.
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Amie Laura (517-518-1812) retirement.rca@gmail.com
Just Days away from the New Year, the Retirement Coaches Association has released its 5 Retirement Mega Trends for 2025. A group of global thought-leaders and innovators came together to discuss and debate the key factors that are reshaping retirement and will play a significant role in the year ahead and beyond. Here is what the RCA Think Tank identified:
1) The New X Factor In Retirement: As the first round of Gen “X” turn 60 in 2025, a new type of retirement is taking shape. One where Gen “Xers” won’t fully retire but instead use part-time, gig, and seasonal work to deviate from the traditional retirement their grandparents and parents experienced. The Gen X population followed their script of going to school, getting a good job, and working hard. But as they begin to turn 50, 55, and 60, they are realizing they want to continue having an impact and aren’t ready for full, traditional retirement. Retirement will become plural for Gen X as they will be more likely to experience retirements(s) from different roles and feed their desire to be social and independent as the “latchkey generation”. After all, they were the first cohort to experience the effects of high divorce rates and more single parent households.
2) Embracing Wisdom Workers: Traditional retirement ages like 62 and 65 foster an ageist view of older adults in the workplace. Reality is, age alone doesn’t determine mental or physical capacity. More companies will recognize the importance of stage rather than age and usher in a new era of older worker adults who are willing to switch from salary to contractor status and provide mentoring at a discounted rate to foster generativity (or giving back to future generations). A good example of this was a recent newspaper ad from Loreal on how they have more than 13,000 employees over age 50.
3) New Public Policy: The RCA is working on and expects innovative public policy that recommends both government and large public companies to provide non-financial retirement coaching to support better mental and physical health in older adults. We need to combat the long hours of TV watching and incidents of isolation and depression in older adults that research continues to highlight. The best time to help with this and establish better habits is in the 3-5 years leading up to actual retirement. The Social Security Administration should be the first agency to adopt a new “Retirement Orientation” program available to those who are applying for retirement related benefits.
4) Retirement Lifestyle Planning Will Gain In Popularity: The number of retirement coaches employed by financial advisory firms and fortune 500 companies will skyrocket. Organizations are beginning to recognize the value of applying social science, research, and proven frameworks like positive psychology and behavioral economics to the retirement planning process. Non-financial specialists will be in place and help companies better manage their talent, embrace wisdom workers, and combat mental health issues by addressing everything, from empty-nest-syndrome and encore careers, to entrepreneurship and caregiving in retirement.
5) Wisdom Over Wealth: Legacy Notebooks become must haves and do’s. As people realize that passing on wisdom is more important than passing on wealth, capturing the stories of older generations in writing, video, or other media will become the next cool thing to do like pickle ball and ancestry.com. Commonly called an ethical or spiritual will, the goal is to capture mom or dad’s key life lessons, lists of fun and favorite things, as well as hope and dreams for future generations to name a few. There are a host of ways to accomplish this including tools like conversation cards, the “I’m writing a book about you” themed notebook with pre-set questions to ask, as well as media companies who send equipment to capture video and then edit it down for you.
The Retirement Coaches Association was founded in 2017 with one simple mission, to modernize the world of retirement planning by helping people develop a plan for the non-financial aspects of life after work. We believe the current retirement planning model is insufficient because it focuses primarily on money instead of helping people replace their work identity, fill their time, and stay relevant and connected, as well as mentally and physically active.
The RCA has become a recognized international organization setting the standards for the Retirement Coaching industry by publishing 6 best-selling books, presenting dozens of CE credit worthy webinars and trainings and hosts the only non-financial focused conference in the industry.
Press & Media Contacts
Amie Laura, Business and Marketing Director
517-518-1812
retirement.rca@gmail.com
Retirement Intelligence is the new, more comprehensive measure of retirement readiness and the “X” factor that has been missing from traditional planning conversations and decisions.
Until now, there hasn’t been a tool or process to help people understand and plan for the mental, social, and physical aspects of the transition. The RQ profile is a landmark approach to assessing personal retirement readiness and serves as the new narrative for retirement planning, decision making, and transitioning. The RQ Experience:
Retirement Intelligence is a framework for understanding an individual and not only appreciating their world, but also gaining insights from it in an effort to better prepare them for their retirement transition. The purpose is to make retirement more understandable and meaningful, which can be accomplished by assessing and increasing RQ.
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