I "retired" at 45, since I had 22 years with IBM, and you qualified for retirement through either service or age. They laid off our entire department, and my manager said, honestly, my choice was voluntary retirement with a very sweet package, and refusing retirement, having another job within the company found for me, from which they could fire me for any reason whatsoever, and that they would certainly do so, and then I'd get none of the retirement benefits (other than pension and 401K). So, while I'd have been happy to keep working there for another decade or more, I was too expensive for them to keep when they could replace me with a new hire making 1/3 of what they paid me.