So says another think tank that is likely stealing our money to pay for its “research”.
The study, published by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a think tank, found that retirement results in a “drastic decline in health” in the medium and long term.
The IEA said the study suggests people should work for longer for health as well as economic reasons.
The government already plans to raise the state pension age.
Given my economic situation, continuing to work beyond the retirement age was always going to be on the cards. I’ll slow the pace a bit, but will keep working as I don’t want a dramatic reduction in my standard of living. However, as we get older, our health will deteriorate. This is called getting old. We get old and then we die. This is the natural order of things. Immortality has not been invented – although, listening to the health fascists, you’d be forgiven for thinking so.
This report, then, dovetails nicely into hmg’s determination that we need to work longer because there is no money in the pot to pay our pensions. Policy based evidence finding, it’s called.
Edward Datnow, chairman of the Age Endeavour Fellowship, said: “There should be no ‘normal’ retirement age in future.
Actually, I agree with this. If you are fit enough and want to, why not? Although if we wait long enough, the intergenerational cretins will be along shortly to accuse baby boomers of stealing young people’s jobs having already accused older people of hogging their own houses.
The study suggests there is a small boost to health immediately after retirement, before a significant decline in the longer term.
Well, yes, four score years and ten and all that. As we get older, we wear out and stop working.
Retirement is found to increase the chances of suffering from clinical depression by 40%, while you are 60% more likely to suffer from a physical condition.
I don’t know who all these depressed people are. All the post retirement folk I’ve come across wonder how they ever managed to fit work into their busy schedule. As for physical deterioration, see the above.
Doubtless we are paying for this statement of the obvious.
And where are all these jobs for older people anyway? In most occupations, it’s extremely difficult finding any work whatsoever once you’ve passed 50.
Three years ago, when I found myself out of work, I had first hand experience of this phenomenon. Once, getting a job was easy for me, now I never get past the interview stage. Indeed, being self-employed in a niche market makes me desirable, but only as a contractor, not as an employee.
And even if you’re prepared to do a less demanding job at a lower salary, you will be told you are over-qualified. The real reason being that younger managers feel that experienced older subordinates will undermine their authority.
Like you, I have only really worked recently as a contractor. Took one supposedly permanent job which turned out to have been completely mis-sold to me.
Ah, yeah, the “over qualified line”. I had that one a fair bit, too. Stacking shelves was the only opportunity that didn’t worry about my age and it served for about a year while I rebuilt my self-employed training work. Mrs L had the old “technology has moved on” line when she tried to get back into IT. Yes, technology moves on, however, desktop support hasn’t exactly changed much and many businesses are still using XP, which was the norm when she left her old job. Fortunately for her, her old job took her back – not before she spent a year doing menial work that was well below her level of competence.
“it’s extremely difficult finding any work whatsoever once you’ve passed 50”. “now I never get past the interview stage”
I am now at the stage where I don’t even think about getting as far as “an interview” I just dream about job vacancies I feel I can apply for where I don’t know that my application is going to be filed in the WPB the moment the recipient sees, or works out, or judges “how old this boring old fart is..” I am not retired, but I am “a NEET” who is “getting by” as a result of having, much to the disdain of my contemporaries, shoveled away significant chunks of my income when working, rather than enjoying the “live today, worry about paying tomorrow” lifestyle to the full. I take some personal comfort in knowing that whilst I am presently not “a striver” neither am I a “shirker or scrounger” as I have declined to “sign on” – largely because whilst £71 a week would indeed by “handy” I am buggered if I am going to become part of the corporate welfare scam and jamboree called “the Work Programme”. I’ll sell off my vinyl and CD collection before letting that happen.
We had to sign on after we ran out of records to sell and the savings account was dry. Demands for money we just didn’t have made it a necessity. I hated every moment of the experience and took the shelf stacking job to get myself back into work as soon as I could.
I have resigned myself to having to part with some “cash generating artefacts” in due course. I am not too proud or haughty to do “shelf stacking” but the idea that I do it “for my JSA” whilst (a) the store owner avoids actually employing someone at even minimum wage to do it and (b) the Work Programme “prime provider contract holder”, who I happen to fall into the embrace of because of where I live, stands to collar a “sustainment payment” for having found a store owner who is prepared to have me working for them at taxpayer expense, really really sticks in my craw, so I won’t participate. I do of course understand that a lot of people have no option but to do so.
It’s unlikely that they will expect you to go on a workfare programme as it is designed for the youngsters who haven’t worked. At least, that is supposed to be how it works…
Sainsbury’s took me on on the going rate – piss-poor though it was. It kept the wolf from the door.
“At least, that is supposed to be how it works…” The focus is indeed currently more on young unemployed – to the extent that the Youth Contract also exists – but if as on oldie you are “signed on” for long enough you do become “eligible” .. “At the moment, most over-50s have to wait 12 months to be referred to the government’s Work Programme” and just for the sake of repeating an “official DWP statistic “over 45% of unemployed people aged over 50 have been unemployed for 12 months or more compared with around 30% of Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants aged 18 or over.”
I’m in the fortunate position whereby, if I husband my assets carefully and avoid extravagant spending, I don’t actually need to work, although I am still hopeful of being able to in some capacity.
And you have to jump through a hell of a lot of humilating hoops to claim that princely £71 a week JSA (which in my case was further reduced as I have a very small occupational pension).
Tell me about it.
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Retirement shouldn’t exist. It’s only a relatively modern concept. In the past you stopped working when you were too ill or dead. Pensions allowed people to retire and still carry on living. And pension were set at an age where most people were already dead and it covered the living costs of those exceptional souls who lived a bit longer than their brothers and sisters. Unfortunately medical advances have allowed humans to live a lot longer than we did in the past. But the pension age is still stuck in the past.
Retirement should be set at 80 years old.