Extended Working Lives: What Do Older Employees Want?

Abstract

Across most western nations, the assumption that individuals will be working for longer and delaying retirement has come to dominate discussion of policies and practices around later working life. The OECD’s (2006) publication, Live Longer, Work Longer, captured the relationship between increased longevity and extended working lives, and paid work has become a key component of the active ageing agenda. Legal restrictions around compulsory retirement ages have been lifted in many countries, facilitating greater choice over working for longer (see for example Manfredi and Vickers in Chap. 4). In addition, concerns relating to the inadequacy of pension provision have led to an expectation that people will need to work for longer because they cannot afford to retire as early as previous generations. Data from the OECD on trends in 24 countries illustrates an effective rise in retirement age, with the average retirement age for men in 2012 reaching 65 years or over in 11 countries, and for women in nine countries. This compares to only four countries in 2007. Within the UK, the country focused on in this chapter, national statistics show rising employment rates for people aged 60+. However, these increases are typically modest, and the majority still retire at, or before, the age of eligibility for state old age pension (currently 65 years for men, and rising from 60 to 65 years for women).