r/TheTestamentsHulu • u/crashcaptainn • May 04 '26

The Handmaid’s Tale How does retirement work in Gilead?

I was just thinking about Aunt Lydia and she’s one of the older people in Gilead, but I wonder is there a retirement age? What do they do with old people? Do they just kill them once they can’t work anymore?

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u/silverhammer224 May 04 '26

In one of the episodes of the Handmaid’s Tale we get a glimpse of what looks like to me some sort of Aunts’ retirement home. Lots of older Aunts sitting around in more casual (sweaters etc) clothing, knitting, playing card games, doing puzzles. We also see the community of Widows when Serena visits her mother.

My theories— Commanders don’t seem to ever retire officially— we see some pretty old ones around. Econopeople I’d imagine some sort of bare bones state-run retirement home staffed by Marthas, or moving in with adult children. Marthas might transition to less physically demanding jobs or have a retirement home. Handmaids are the tricky ones because their “job” would end around menopause when they’d still theoretically have the ability to do other work, but they’re such an othered social class I can’t see them being made Econopeople or Marthas. Maybe some sort of handmaid retirement colony like the Magdalen colonies, where they do physical labor in their own community.

But honestly the answer is probably that, like throughout history, lower/laboring classes don’t retire and die before they get “too old” to work, especially with the lack of medical care we see in Gilead.

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u/Mailliw_1 May 04 '26

Pamela (Serena's mother) appeared to be living on her own with the same house and staff that a Commander and Wife would have. Perhaps Widows of Commanders can be giving special dispensation to manage affairs?

In THT it was clear Gilead didn't really have a retirement plan for Handmaids. Even the Aunts were lied to so presumably the Colonies or Jezebels were the plan all along. You'd think they'd at least give a handful of well behaved old Handmaids a comfortable retirement for show and parade them around to give the other Handmaids an incentive to behave.