Retirement is a very recent life phase: one that may be obsolete

 

Retirement as we know it today is a less than century old phenomena. The truth of the matter is that most Humans (particularly males) never had the opportunity to retire. They simply worked until they died. You could not work, but then you wouldn’t eat — leading to the same resolution.
The combination of Social Security, private pension funds, IRAs and 401(ks) are the funding mechanisms. They are quite imperfect, but what they require is tweaking, not undoing. Raise the FICA cap on Social Security, and that becomes financially sound. In IRAs and 401(k)s, you can replace high cost under-performing active funds with low cost passive ETFs and see an immediate improvement in returns. There are simple fixes for what are essentially actuarial issues.
One last thing: Note that after 120 years of the labor force participation rate dropping for the over 65 male, it has begun ticking up again. The key question is whether this is merely a post-crisis catch up caused by 3 crashes — Stocks, houses & stocks again — or whether it represents a fundamental change in society.
 
Most Human Males Never Retired (they just died) | The Big Picture