• Question: What do scientists do after they retire

    Asked by connerlee on 4 Nov 2025.
    • Photo: Martin McCoustra

      Martin McCoustra answered on 4 Nov 2025:

      Many of us don’t really retire… We just keep doing what we were doing but in a slightly different form!

    • Photo: Richard Birch

      Richard Birch answered on 4 Nov 2025:

      Seeing as I’m just a year or two off, I’ve been thinking a lot about this one. The answer is – same as I do professionally, but not driven by economics. Some very interesting areas of research that I’ve been dabbling in have no obvious economic value, but wow! who wouldn’t want to know about the ecology of the sea that covered Wales half a billion years ago? There are specimens sitting in a draw that need description, and a whole marine ecosystem to reconstruct. Then there’s a plant growing near me that is a parasite of other plants, but nobody knows the impact it has on its host (and its now an invasive weed in Australia, so there may be some future economic significance to studying it).
      I’d have to retire to even attempt these!

Comments

  • Photo: melissau

    melissau commented on :

    I think scientists might retire in the sense of no longer having somebody paying them to do a specific job but scientists’ minds are likely to be constantly asking questions about the things they’re interested in, so the definition of retirement is a question of deciding how much time they want to spend thinking about these without somebody paying them to do this versus spending time doing other things which perhaps they didn’t have time for when they were doing a paid job – perhaps taking up a hobby which is both interesting and relaxing at the same time? I left a full time paid job a couple of years ago to become self employed a couple of years before I thought I would ‘retire’ and I’ve loved being able to volunteer with charities who do interesting work with animals I’ve never been involved with previously alongside still doing some paid project work in my ‘old’ areas of interest

  • Photo: Arun

    Arun commented on :

    I have observed scientists who continue working beyond their retirement years and also know scientists who completely transitioned out of the scientific field after retirement. Both scenarios are entirely normal, but what truly matters is how effectively we utilise our most productive years leading up to retirement to make the most significant contribution to society.