golden years

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

an idiom for late life and retirement, typically the period after one leaves paid employment, framing old age as a time of deserved rest, fulfilment, and enjoyment — the reward for a lifetime of work — with the metaphor of gold suggesting both precious worth and the warm autumnal tones associated with the late season of life; the phrase entered wide usage in the United States in the twentieth century, particularly through the marketing of retirement communities, pension products, and leisure services to aging populations, and reflects the mid-century American aspiration that a lifetime of productive work would be rewarded with a comfortable, secure, and pleasurable old age; the idiom is partly aspirational — many people's later years are marked not by golden comfort but by financial insecurity, health challenges, bereavement, and isolation — and its uncritical use has been criticised for glossing over the inequalities in aging experience that determine whether retirement is genuinely golden for any particular person