Mauro Guillén (Wharton School): “The idea that retirement is the great prize you have in life is harmful”

This 59-year-old from Leon is one of the most prominent Spanish teachers in the United States, where he has worked for more than thirty years.

Mauro Guillén, PhD in Sociology from Yale University and in Political Economy from Oviedo University, is vice dean of the Wharton School and holder of the Zandman Chair of International Management.

He has just published in Spain The multigenerational revolution (Deusto), a book in which he encourages breaking the rules that govern society, work and the economy, an obsolete system that he believes has an expiration date.

“We have a complete mismatch between the way the system asks us to live and the dynamics of technological change and increased life expectancy,” he says.

Guillén proposes a much more flexible organization for a world in which nuclear families (different-sex couples with children) are only 18% of the total in the US and 33% in Spain despite the hegemonic position that is assumed for them. in the current model that “provides a lot of predictability to the economy, which can then be planned well, but which life expectancy and technology are knocking down,” he maintains.

Ask.

Why do you think the multigenerational revolution is coming?

Answer.

Because we have organized our lives based on age, in several stages: study, work and retirement, and this worked very well 140 years ago, when the world did not change much, most of the jobs were manual and, above all, when we did not live beyond 50 or 55 years.

But now the situation has changed radically, also due to technology, which makes jobs obsolete, and we are asking people to be flexible, but in reality what is not flexible is the system.

Q.

Who are the perennials, the protagonists of your book?

A.

They are simply people who do not think or act according to their age.

They say that what they want right now is to go back to school even if they are 50 years old, for example.

That is very difficult under the system we have, which prescribes what you have to do at all times.

While market dynamics and technology require us to reinvent ourselves several times throughout our lives.

Q.

How is the lag fixed?

A.

Well, with great difficulty because the first thing that needs to change is mentalities.

For example, this idea that the great prize you have in life is retirement is absolutely harmful for the vast majority of retirees.

All we achieve by retiring is that cognitive and health decline accelerates, you become disconnected from your social networks, you feel isolated... the feeling of loneliness of people of a certain age is a very difficult problem.

And it also imposes very high costs on society because these pensions and care must be financed.

At a time, furthermore, when there are few young people due to the drop in birth rates;

The imbalance is enormous and the problems are multiplying.

These are problems that cannot be addressed without changing the system.

Q.

And what role do companies have to play?

A.

They have to change, especially the big ones, and Spain is a very good example, because when a worker turns 50, they are already thinking about how to get them out of the way.

We can't afford it.

It is unsustainable for the pension system.

An average 60-year-old employee has another 25 or 26 years of life expectancy.

And there is another problem: that most people hate his job, that's why he wants to retire.

The design of the stalls is poorly done.

Q.

But that is tremendously difficult to solve...

A.

An effort must be made to give better opportunities to people.

Although that requires a change in companies and, of course, a change in the public sector and in regulations.

Because all the public incentives we have are oriented towards that model of first you study, then you work and then you retire.

Tax incentives, aid to go to university...

Q.

You say that the postgenerational society that you advocate would generate opportunities for companies, why?

A.

The research is very clear: when you have work teams in which there is diversity, whether gender, ethnic or age group, productivity is greater and so is creativity.

There are many advantages associated with diversity.

The same thing happens in the educational system, where we classify people by age groups and then we give each one a different title, we segregate them.

We have designed everything in a wrong way, which made sense 140 years ago, but not anymore.

Q.

How to avoid a career being linear as it has been until now?

A.

We have to change structures and offer opportunities for people to continue learning throughout their lives, programs that allow them to reinvent themselves because, if not, there comes a time when what they have learned is no longer useful because the environment has changed. , competition, technology, and then many of them lose their jobs and then they can't find a similar one and end up voting for Trump.

That is the problem, which has dire political consequences: populism in Europe and the United States feeds on that frustration that a large mass of people have when they reach 40 or 50 years old and realize that they no longer fit in.

Q.

Young people are required to decide their future too soon.

How should we do it?

A.

Parents have made a very big mistake: putting enormous pressure on children to decide at 16 what they want to do in their lives.

So much so that the rates of school failure, depression and suicide have increased drastically.

And now this is counterproductive: we cannot ask them to decide for the rest of their lives because surely 10 years later the chosen job position no longer exists.

We have to tell teenagers, think about what you want to do in the next 10 years and assume that later you will have to reinvent yourself due to technological change.

Now about 50% of graduates from my school at Wharton are taking jobs that didn't exist 20 years ago.

Q.

If the studies are only going to last 10 years, what will happen to the universities?

A.

Universities are the worst.

Especially those that have done well because there is nothing that paralyzes you from innovating more than having been successful.

Universities are going to begin to change as a result of the competition that is going to come increasingly stronger from digital platforms.

At the moment, they offer an educational product that is not of such good quality because they are experimenting, but in a few years they will offer comparable educational opportunities that are cheaper and more flexible.

Q.

You talk a lot about reinvention, but in a country like Spain with very high unemployment, is it feasible?

A.

Spain is peculiar, with a high average unemployment rate, which is not that of Madrid, because it is distributed unevenly, especially anchored in the south of the country.

But, even so, it is obvious that here we do not know how to take advantage of talent.

The problem begins in the educational system and is magnified in companies, which are still very traditional.

If you look at the Ibex you see that they are the same companies as 30 years ago.

There is very little dynamism and that fossilizes everything.

It is difficult to make changes because they are comfortable and have no incentive to do so.

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