Advice for Retiring (Literally) Women

First the bad news: boomers suffer from depression more than any other age group. Now the other bad news: women suffer from depression more often than men. The Atlantic reports that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that between 1999 and 2004, rates of suicide increased by 20 percent for 45-to-54-year-olds, a far greater increase than that experienced in nearly every other age groug, and among women who were 45-to-54-year-olds, the increase was 31 percent. Now comes help, perhaps, in the form of book called Retiring But Not Shy. Edited by Ellen Cole and Mary Gergen, it presents advice and narratives from 23 professional, issue-driven women who recently left their careers behind. The essays explore what, exactly, is happy old age, and how does one get there from a rewarding professional life that is now barely visible in the rear view mirror.