Walk into any salon in Nairobi, Nakuru, or Kisumu and you will find a steady stream of men and women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s asking for one thing: “Nifanyie black.” Make it black again. Cover the grey.
In Kenya, retirement conversations almost always start with money. Have you saved enough? Will your pension last? Should you buy a plot upcountry? These are necessary questions.
It is now well accepted that there is a moment in every retiree’s life that no financial planner can prepare you for. It is not the day your pension hits your account. It is not the farewell party or the last email from the office.
In Kenya, there is a familiar response many people hear when they say they are retired: “Oh, you are retired but not tired.” It is usually delivered with a smile, sometimes even admiration. The intention is kind. It is meant to affirm vitality, relevance, and continued life.
For too many Kenyans, retirement is imagined as the beginning of the end – a quiet season of slowing down, stepping aside and learning to live with the realities of ageing. But what if we have retirement completely wrong? What if, instead of preparing ourselves to withdraw from life we viewed retirement as an opportunity to rediscover how to live and reinvent ourselves during this chapter of our lives?
Many Kenyan retirees are one serious illness away from financial ruin. Rising medical costs, inadequate insurance cover and uncertainty surrounding the Social Health Authority (SHA) breadth of cove and availability of services have left the country’s ageing population dangerously exposed. There is a frightening truth that many Kenyans in formal employment discover only after leaving work – the moment you retire is often the moment you lose access to affordable healthcare.
Retirement is often seen as a time to slow down, to step back, and to finally “let go.” But too often, that phrase morphs into “letting yourself go.” Many retirees forget that looking and feeling good is not the exclusive domain of the young or those going to the office. It is a lifelong commitment to self-respect and how we present ourselves to the world.
Where will you live when you retire? It sounds like a simple question. Yet for many Kenyans approaching or already in retirement, it is anything but simple. The questions for many include: will you return to the village, remain in the city, move to a smaller town, or divide your time between two homes?
What if the real problem with retirement is not this phase of life – but the language we use to define it? The word retirement comes from the French retirer, meaning “to withdraw into seclusion.”
If you are a Kenyan of a certain age – approaching retirement or already there – your life story likely began before the Wi-Fi signals and smartphone notifications. You most likely walked kilometres to school. Electricity was not available and running water not guaranteed. And your connection to the wider world? A small family transistor radio, carefully tuned to the only available national radio channel – Voice of Kenya (VOK). That was your “digital age.”
Whenever Kenyans see older people occupying positions of leadership, the reaction is almost predictable: shouldn’t they step aside and give the youth a chance? The perception is that older Kenyans are holding onto opportunities that should now belong to a younger generation.
A beginner’s mind is a way of approaching life with openness, curiosity, and without fixed judgments – as if you were seeing things for the first time.
Retirement is often imagined as one long rest. No alarms, no pressure, no deadlines. After years of hard work, slowing down feels well-deserved. And it is.
Retirement remains a risky and uncertain journey for Kenyans. For many, the word “retirement” is still whispered with fear, often associated with poverty, dependence, and declining dignity.