The retirement-plan industry regularly extols the virtues of 401(k)s and other retirement investment programs. Yet a survey of the heads of many big employer retirement plans found that nearly 80 percent of them agreed that "the days of working until the age of 65, retiring, and then never having to work again are generally over for most workers."

BlackRock, the investment management firm, polled 118 heads of generally large employer retirement programs. Their sentiment about the need to continue working reflects inadequate retirement savings of older employees, the decline of traditional pensions, and the changing views about retirement among baby boomers.