Should We Eliminate Retirement Age?
Since 1840, the life expectancy of humans has been increasing by approximately three months every year. In recent years, it increased to 76 in 2005 from 65 in 1975 but the top retirement age has stayed fixed at 65. In other words, the workers had to retire at the expected age of their death in 1975 and even later before that if they were still around. By the yardstick of 1975 the retirement age should now be 76. In view of the improvement in health of our older citizens this should not sound as scandalous as it does. After all, a large number of retirees continue to work in paid jobs after retiring from their long-term employer long after the retirement, many more do volunteer work for several hours a week What this suggestion does do is to indicate that a fixed age for retirement is not appropriate for twenty first century. Even if the age were tweaked upwards, it will soon be out of date because the improvements in healthcare and living habits will continue to make the general population healthier and enable it to live longer.

Ever increasing periods of training are required to qualify for most professions and the professionals need to work till late in life to pay off debts incurred in training and save for a comfortable retirement. An aging population with its demands on healthcare and social services is straining the economies of developed as well as developing nations. Thanks to these factors, there is a crying need for major corrective steps to avert an economic turmoil. Many economists, but no politician, have proposed a revision of the age for retirement. This will at best be a short-term solution. What we need is not a fixed age for retirement but an option to retire after certain length of employment and flexibility to continue the current employment if health and other circumstances make it desirable. Similarly, the government pension plans should enable a contributor to start collecting after a certain period of membership with the option to delay receiving pension with or without further contributions. “Senior” benefits like supported transit passes or discounts which are currently offered them are for businesses to determine what age suits their purpose. Indeed, there is a considerable flexibility now. Some stores allow senior discounts at the age of 55, some at 65 and others do not offer them at all.

The change to length of service rather than the age will make the dreaded forecasts about growing older population becoming a burden on shrinking young population obsolete because the older people who opt to remain in workforce will contribute taxes to the governments and savings to the economy in growing numbers and for many more years. It will keep qualified professionals and trained workers in labour force and reduce the need of foreign skilled workers just when they have incentives to stay home. It will also give time to depleted Pension Funds of corporations to recover. Employers will probably need some protection when they need to terminate older employees who are not willing to face the deterioration in their capacities. However, this is not an insurmountable obstacle and the advantages far outweigh any other difficulties that may arise.

Eliminating the retirement age is one stone that will kill many pesky birds.