Leo She is 79 years old and continues to work in the nut store she opened 51 years ago with her husband. Amadeoa 96-year-old “tavernkeeper”, may be the oldest active hotelier in Spain; After a lifetime of working, he continues to proudly say that he is in love with the union and that his thing is “a game” that feeds him spiritually.
These two stories have gone viral on the social media profile of @comilonestvwhich takes time recovering people’s stories who “have spent a lifetime working” and continue to do so despite having passed retirement age. The comments that accompany these videos contain a mixture of astonishment and admiration, but above all they make it clear that these cases represent a not so small reality in Spain—dozens of users mention similar examples in their cities and nearby environments.
The moment of the retirement It is often imagined as a desired goal after decades of work: a stage associated with more freedom, one’s own time, and the possibility of taking up hobbies or discovering new ones. However, for a part of the population, the arrival of retirement does not imply a total break with their profession. While some people completely disassociate themselves from their work activity, others choose to maintain a certain connection with it or even decide to continue working beyond retirement age.
The economic weight
The transition from collecting a payroll to receiving a pension implies, in many cases, a reconfiguration of the economy in many homes. Money then appears as one of the possible motivations among those people who choose to continue working when the opportunity to retire arrives.
This trend has exploded in the last decade in the United States, where studies They point out how the number of workers aged 65 or over who remain in the labor market has grown. In fact, some statistics They point out that in 2024 just over 22% of adults over 65 were still employed, whether full or part-time.
Meanwhile, in Spain, the last Active Population Survey (EPA) of 2025 has placed the employment among those over 65 years of age at historical highs, going from 5% to 14% in the last ten years. There are multiple factors behind this increase, but the economic factor appears recurrently in those who decide to prolong their working life.
Antonio, a 67-year-old doctor who continues to practice in the private sector after retiring from the public system — and who prefers to keep his identity private — assures that “the economic issue usually weighs heavily” in this decision. Especially, he explains, because many people reach retirement with children still financially dependent. “It is very rare that at 65 years old people have their children already placed, emancipated and all expenses paid,” he points out.
He assures that the situation has changed a lot compared to previous generations: “Before, when the parents retired, the children were already emancipated. Not now.” The delay in emancipation and the cost increase of life means that many families continue to have significant financial burdens even after reaching retirement age, which according to Antonio makes it “so common” in the health sector to maintain activity: “It is very rare for someone at 65 to say: ‘I’ll take my clogs and phonendo forever’.”
However, reducing this phenomenon solely to an economic issue would be oversimplifying it for Gema Pérez Rojo, professor at the CEU San Pablo University and psychologist certified by the Official College of Psychology of Madrid. Although money matters—and a lot in some cases—the psychologist believes that it is a multifactorial decision and “it is rarely just about money.”
A decision with different “edges”
The reasons for continuing to work at retirement age rarely respond to a single reason. For Antonio, in fact, there are several: he mentions financial income, but also the need to stay active and avoid boredom —“What do I do at home 24 hours without any professional activity?”—, continue feeling useful, maintain a routine, continue practicing a profession that he defines as vocational or “wait” for his partner, who is not yet old enough to retire.
Rosa María Álvarez Barral, a psychologist active in Venezuela, also does not believe that there is a “specific profile” of a person who chooses to continue their work activity beyond the age of 65. In his opinion, this is a decision that mixes motivational factorssocial and economic.
“Work makes you feel important, valuable, distracted and continues to have interesting challenges,” he explains. Furthermore, he maintains that the profession can become an important part of personal identity and provide social recognition, especially in people with long careers or prestige within their sector.
“Retirement is often sold as the golden goal of existence, but psychologically it is complex territory. It is not just a change of schedule; it is a metamorphosis of one’s identity.” This is how Professor Pérez Rojo explains how the arrival of retirement can be “for some a haven of peace and for others an existential abyss.”
During working life, the profession is part of our cover letter. And after decades dedicated to a position, Pérez Rojo, who is also part of the Aging research group (BUENAVEJEZ), notices how “self-concept merges with role.” So, “when you retire you not only leave a job, you leave an identity.” Psychologist Álvarez Barral speaks of “symbiosis” or “marriage”: a “sense that your identity is linked to your profession.”
This is the case of Nacho Valbuena, a journalist who, despite having retired three years ago, continues to collaborate with the media very actively. For him, vocation has been key and age has not represented an impediment, since he claims not to be able to live without practicing journalism: “I don’t think about age, I will be 90 years old and I will continue with this profession (…) It is very deep within me.”
And the type of employment is decisive when facing the transition to retirement. Those who have held “jobs with a high load of physical or mental stress or monotonous positions” usually receive retirement as “a true liberation and rescue of their health.” However, according to Pérez Rojo, those who have held positions of high responsibility, prestige or strong vocation, “tend to experience it as a loss of affect and status.”
From job to hobby
Epifanía Martín—or Epi, as she prefers to be called—retired four years ago, and after a lifetime dedicated to clothing, she has transformed her trade into her hobby. “It’s not that I don’t want to separate myself from my profession, it’s that my profession is also part of everyday life (…) Many times you have to sew.” Even so, she admits that she “loves it” and that it helps her relax when she is “a little more uneasy or worried.”
He has replaced the fixed schedule of his work with that of the sewing classes that Epi gives to the neighborhood association of her neighborhood, where she teaches other women “a profession that is being lost.” Although it may seem that way, he emphasizes that neither those classes nor what he sews now “has anything to do” with his years in the field: “I no longer make suits like I used to, now I make small things that I want. I enjoy my profession much more. Although I loved my job, I don’t miss working at all.”
Epi points to Xataka that it is “quite common” to remain active among “dressmakers and seamstresses”: “People who sew or have sewn in their profession, continue to do so. In addition, it is common to have things to do such as fixing a bass or helping someone with some repair (…) Of course it is done, as long as your hands, your time or your health allow it.”
Staying linked to the profession is usually common in some sectors. According to Nacho Valbuena, journalism is another example, as are some professions such as carpentry and the smithyor the artistic professions. According to Pérez Rojo, “the retiree who maintains the activity as a hobby experiences ‘intrinsic motivation’.” That is, it maintains cognitive stimulation, manual dexterity and the satisfaction of achievement, but eliminates the “stressor of mandatory performance: “It is the perfect transition: staying with the enjoyment of leisure and discarding the pressure of employment.”
In short, reaching retirement age does not always mean wanting to stop completely. For some people, stopping work also means abandoning a routine, an identity and a way of feeling useful. While some choose to make a clean break with their work life, others prefer to transform that relationship with work: reduce the pace, maintain a partial activity or convert the job into a more flexible and less demanding dedication.
Because, beyond the economic, retirement also forces us to redefine what to do with our time, with our vocation, and with an important part of who we have been for decades.
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