Posts Tagged “mature age workers”

The old wives’ tale: since he retired, my husband’s a bore

BETTINA ARNDT
THE AUSTRALIAN
OCTOBER 25, 2014

Peter and Bev McNeil are enjoying their retirement at their Blue Mountains house, but many men have trouble adjusting. Picture: John Feder

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SHIRLEY is bursting with energy. The 70-year-old Sydney woman has always embraced life, cramming her days with endless activities. She has a law degree, but worked part-time from when her children were at school and she became caught up in parents committees and running the tuckshop. She has now cut her work days right back, but has plenty to keep her busy, including evening meetings planning campaigns for local environmental issues.

It was fine while her dentist husband was busy with his own career but then he retired and the cracks started to appear. “Even if I prepare a meal for him in advance he drives me crazy ringing to see if I’ll be there to join him. He’s resentful that I still have so much on my plate, yet he never takes up my suggestions of things for him to do. I know he wants me home to do things with him but I don’t want my life shrinking.”

For all the jokes about men and women living on different planets, it’s the post-retirement period that lays bare the telling consequences of the way modern men and women live their lives.

That’s when the chickens come home to roost from men’s dependence on women for their social networks, the failure of many men to develop close, lasting friendships and their devotion to their careers, often at the expense of developing other interests and worthwhile activities.

The golden years burn brightly for many older women but for men they often splutter as they struggle with creating a meaningful life post-retirement. Once the lives of older women were dominated by the “empty nest” as mothers struggled to come to terms with the loss of their mothering role. But for years now, research has shown many older women are thriving. As noted feminist Betty Friedan explained in the book The Fountain of Age, “What the women experienced was increased activity, increased excitement, increased overall happiness, a decrease in depression and an increase in pride. No such change was found for men.”

Research shows that when Australian married men give up work they tend to come home to their wives, with the bulk of their social contact shifting from time spent with work colleagues to time with their partners. But many of the women move in the opposite direction — instead of increased time with their families they are out and about, enjoying friends and other social contacts.

“Retired women recorded a big increase in time spent with family/friends outside the household, while retired men recorded a decrease,” reports Roger Patulny, a sociology lecturer at the University of Wollongong, who analysed data on social contact in old age in the journal Family Matters.

Most of the time retired men used to spend with work colleagues now gets spent with their wives. Patulny: “After retirement men’s family time increases from 13 to 15.7 hours per day, while their daily time with friends decreases by nearly 20 minutes and with colleagues/acquaintances by over 2 ½ hours. By contrast, many women grasp the opportunity for more time spent away from their partners when they retire, increasing average time spent with non-family members from 75 to 103 minutes a day.”

“Men are hit pretty hard by retirement because they haven’t really had the opportunity to diversify their social networks as much and then find themselves devoid of the one network they have constantly relied upon for years,” Patulny comments.

It’s hard on marriages, particularly because for men this stage of life was traditionally associated with a new drive for intimacy and closeness after his big career thrust was over. But a man’s new neediness is hardly welcome to the wife enjoying spreading her wings.

A longitudinal study conducted by Marjorie Fiske and colleagues from the University of California Medical School interviewed men and women before and after retirement and found retired women often made positive changes in their lives — like training, travel, more education — but many of the men were bored and isolated. Fiske: “The men got angrier and angrier as their wives over the years got more confident and began to do more things, instead of just taking care of them. The wives began to resent their husbands’ demands on them. The men simply got more and more depressed.”

Most men brush off the idea that they resent their wives’ new enthusiasms. “Every time I turn around she’s off again. Off to her choir one minute, then shopping, or a book club, then off to have coffee. It’s endless,” laughs Peter McNeil, 82, before hastily explaining that it’s not that he’s resentful of her busy life. He’s also a very busy man, he tells me, explaining the various discussion groups he’s involved in as well as taking a very active role in the Blackheath Men’s Shed. It’s just that sometimes there’s a problem when she’s off in their shared car, he says.

It was interesting how often older women list off a string of activities they are involved in — learning painting or pottery, attending university courses, writers festivals, book clubs, all sorts of stimulating activities, but ask their husbands what their wives are up to and they’ll mention shopping or the hairdresser. And talking … “I don’t know what these women find to talk about all the time,” one man grumbled to me.

Melbourne psychologist Dr Peter O’Connor sees many older men in this situation who react to their wives’ desire to pursue new interests with obstruction and objections. “There’s often a resentment fuelled by envy. The man finds himself with no one dependent on him and, even more frightening, he encounters his own feelings of vulnerability, loss of power and potency and increasing dependence. Sometimes these men defend against the anxiety generated by their wives’ changes by deriding and denigrating their activities, denying that they are doing anything remotely important,” O’Connor says.

In his book Facing the Fifties — from denial to reflection, O’Connor draws on important work by American geropsychologist David Gutmann, who wrote about the “crossover effect” where psychologically older men develop passive, nurturing or contemplative “feminine” qualities while older women acquire more bold, assertive, adventurous “masculine” qualities.

O’Connor says he’s watched many older women acquire a new zest for life as they make these changes. “It’s my turn,” they tell him as they move away from the “accommodating self” they used for so long to keep the peace in their marriages. O’Connor reports great conflict in some marriages as women pursue new interests while men flounder to re-create a meaningful post-career life.

“I often see retired men who are genuinely lost. They no longer see the point of life. They have always focused on problem solving, ‘doing’ privileged over ‘being’, and are ill-prepared for the chaos and uncertainty that comes with change,” says O’Connor, suggesting women tend to be more flexible, partly because women’s lives include more transitions and they learn to be adaptable.

It all leaves many older men playing more and more golf or making a fetish out of the size of their super. “Superannuation is like secular heaven, a rewarding after-work life,” jokes O’Connor, suggesting an obsessive preoccupation with retirement finances can be a reflection of a deepening anxiety about dependency and older age — issues men find hard to confront.

For single men, the problem of boredom and isolation looms even larger, with research showing they are much less active than partnered men. According to the 2012 Disability, Ageing and Carers survey, over a three-month period only 31 per cent of men in this age group living alone attended a movie, concert or other live event compared to 40 per cent of men with partners. Single men were less likely than partnered men to be involved with arts or craft, go to church or restaurants or clubs, be involved with voluntary activities, visit museums, art galleries or botanical gardens, participate in physical activities or attend sporting events or education groups.

“They are so boring! Bored and boring,” says one of my dating clients, Sharon, a lively 62-year-old Melbourne woman who’s spent much of the last decade looking for a mate. She’s met dozens of retired men through online dating who are often shocked by her busy schedule. A former physiotherapist, Sharon has found retirement has opened up endless opportunities for expanding her horizons. She jams philosophy lessons, art shows and anti-fracking meetings in between music and writers festivals, with her active social and family life filling in the few gaps.

She’s increasingly disenchanted about her chances of meeting a simpatico companion. “What is it with these men? They expect me to entertain them, to share my busy life and enjoy my friends, yet they have so little to contribute. They are often men who had interesting careers, big lives, yet when they gave up work their lives shrank to hitting little white balls into holes. And they have no friends. How’s it possible for a 65-year-old man to have no real friends?”

That’s all too common, says men’s health expert Steve Carroll. He’s spent more than 30 years travelling around rural Australia talking to groups of men about their health — conversations that often end up focusing on men’s relationships.

“For many men, the problem is their lack of real relationships. While they have a working life they have plenty of social contact, superficial banter with their workmates, although it is striking how rarely they actually see their work companions outside of work. But when they retire they lose their major source of social contact and they become increasingly dependent on their wives,” he says, mentioning a gregarious elderly former businessman who hasn’t left his house since his wife’s death three years ago.

They just don’t have the skill set to establish more meaningful relationships with other men, says Carroll. While he applauds efforts being made by the Men’s Shed Association to bring older men together for shared activities, he believes very little of the interaction taking part in the sheds translates into proper friendships. “That’s not addressing the problem of changing the male culture that leads to men’s isolation,” he says.

Peter McNeil admits this is true. He sees retirement for many men as like “turning off a tap”, denying men of their major source of a social life. But he acknowledges the type of relationships that develop in most sheds seem simply to replace the “working association” that men used to share in their workplaces, centred around superficial conversation concerning their joint projects, chat about politics or the football. “Nothing too deep. We rarely get into our personal lives, apart from some skylarking or banter about our wives — ‘Couldn’t have the car again yesterday because the wife was off having her hair done’, that sort of thing. It’s pretty rare that men develop friendships that extend beyond the hours they spend together in the sheds.”

Asked whether they’d ever talk about their wife leaving them or erection problems after prostate cancer, there was an audible shudder from a number of Men’s Shed participants. “There’s a few doctors in our group. We’d go to them about that sort of thing,” one commented dismissively.

Most women are still thrilled that the Men’s Sheds are keeping their men busy. “I was delighted when he got involved,” says Peter NcNeil’s wife, Bev, 77. “It meant I could go out without him saying, ‘You’re not going out again?’ ”

Privately, some of the wives admit they can’t understand how men can spend so much time together and know so little about each other. “Men are hopeless,” says a partner of one of the silent men of the shed. “I’ll ask him, ‘What did you talk about?’ Blank. Or ‘What’s so and so’s wife doing?’ Blank. We women are so different. We never shut up.” She mentioned a recent cruise with her husband where she got so bored with the one-sided conversation that she spent her whole time reading books. “I’d love a deep conversation,” she says wistfully.

“If you are not in touch with your feelings you can’t offer proper companionship and it seems to me that’s what women are now yearning for,” says Peter O’Connor, who believes men’s resistance to tuning in to their ‘inner life’ and sharing their feelings not only prevents close friendships with other men but lies at the heart of the demise of many long marriages.

While we constantly hear stories about older men dumping their wives for the younger woman it is far more common for men to find themselves turfed out of a marriage. The percentage of divorces involving men over 50 more than doubled between 1985 and 2010, from 11 to 22 per cent for men in their fifties and 4 to 10 per cent for men aged 60-plus.

A Family Court study by Pauline Presland and Helen Gluckstern back in 1993 showed women made the decision to leave in two-thirds of mature-aged marital separations. Australian National University professor Matthew Gray confirms this is most likely still the case: “Research from around the world shows women make the decision in most, around two-thirds, of all marital separations,” he says.

Of course, there are exceptions to these patterns, gregarious older men with strong friendship networks, males totally connected with their inner lives and keen to share them. Many experts working with men also see hopeful signs that younger men are learning to break down traditional mateship barriers. But elderly men are currently one of the key risk groups for suicide, which has led to new attention being focused on the failure of these older men to develop meaningful lives and strong social connections.

Last year BeyondBlue sponsored research that found the Men’s Sheds are reducing isolation of men, particularly in rural areas, improving wellbeing, promoting friendships and providing men with a new sense of purpose.

It’s a positive start, suggests David Helmers, executive officer of the Australian Men’s Shed Association. It’s a movement, he says, that has created an environment in which men can gather, socialise and share,” he says. That’s all good stuff, but in the meantime the busy women and bored men of our senior world will just keep rubbing each other up the wrong way. Harmony in the golden years seems a long way off.

Bettina Arndt is a social commentator and online dating coach.www.bettinaarndt.com.au

Australia’s Brilliant — and Brutal — Retirement Crisis Solution

By Dan Caplinger | More Articles
October 26, 2014 | Comments (0)

Ayers Rock. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Americans are quite familiar with the challenges threatening the Social Security system, with an aging population starting to retire and putting more strain on the shrinking group of workers paying the Social Security taxes that support their benefits. But America isn’t alone in facing a retirement crisis, and other countries are taking much more dramatic steps to shore up their systems for providing financial assistance to people in their old age. In particular, Australia plans to force its workers to stay in their jobs for years beyond their current retirement age in order to qualify for benefits — and it’s giving employers incentives to make sure older workers can get the jobs they need to hold out that long.

The Australian solution: Work until you’re 70
Australia has seen many of the same things happen to its old-age pension system that the U.S. has seen with Social Security. When Australia first implemented what it calls its age pension more than a century ago, only 4% of the nation’s population lived to the age at which they could claim benefits. Now, though, life expectancies have grown, with the typical Australian living 15 to 20 years beyond the official retirement age of 65. As a result, 9% of the Australian population gets benefits from the age pension, and the potential for some of those recipients to get support from the program for two decades or more has threatened the financial stability of the system. Currently, 2.4 million Australians receive about $35 billion in benefits from the program, making it the Australian government’s largest expenditure.

As a result, Australia has made plans to increase its official retirement age. Over the next 20 years or so, Australians will see the age at which they can officially retire climb to 70 if the plan is approved, putting the land down under at the top of the world’s list of highest retirement ages.

Iron ore mine in Western Australia. Source: Wikimedia Commons

When you just look at the age-pension portion of Australia’s retirement system, that sounds draconian, and plenty of Australians aren’t thrilled about the move. With a significant part of Australia’s economy based on extracting natural resources like oil, natural gas, coal, and various metals, the back-breaking work that many Australians do makes the prospect of staying on the job until 70 seem almost physically impossible. Proponents of the measure counter that argument with the fact that 85% of Australians work in the services industry, and many of those jobs don’t require the physical exertion that makes them impractical for those in their 60s.

Moreover, younger Australians worry about the need for older workers to stay on the job longer. Many fear a “jobless generation” of young adults who can’t get their older counterparts to give way and make room for them to start their careers.

What Australians have that the U.S. doesn’t
Yet before you bemoan the fate of the Australian public, it’s important to keep in mind that the age pension system isn’t the only resource they have going for them. In addition, Australians participate in what’s known as the superannuation system, under which employers are required to make contributions toward superannuation retirement accounts equal to 9.5% of their pay. Like American 401(k)s, employees are allowed to select investment options for this money, with default provisions usually investing in a balanced-fund investment. In addition, employees can make additional contributions of their own to their retirement accounts.

Source: Wikimedia Commons, courtesy Matthew Field

Over time, superannuation assets have built up impressively. As of June 30, assets in superannuation accounts rose to A$1.85 trillion. Australia is also seeking to have those fund balances rise more quickly by requiring more from employers on the superannuation front. Over the next seven years, the employer contribution rate will rise to 12%, accelerating the growth of this important part of Australians’ retirement planning.

Like 401(k)s and IRAs in the U.S., Australians can make withdrawals from their superannuation accounts at earlier ages than they can claim pensions. For those born before mid-1960, access to their retirement savings opens at age 55. That age is slated to rise to 60 over the next decade, but it will still give Australians access to money well before age pensions become available to help them bridge the financial gap.

Should America follow Australia’s lead?
Calls to increase Social Security’s retirement age have met with strong opposition in the U.S., and the Australian plan won’t change that. Yet without the backstop that superannuation provides, raising the retirement age to 70 in the U.S. would be even more painful for aging Americans. Some workers are fortunate enough to have employer matching and profit-sharing contributions that mimic what most Australians get from superannuation, but it’s rare for anyone to get anywhere near the 9.5% to 12% that Australian workers have contributed on their behalf.

Many see Australia’s answer to its retirement crisis as brutal, but given the aging population, it’s consistent with the original purpose of old-age pensions. If the U.S. wants to make similar moves, American workers need the same outside support for their retirement that Australians get — and that will also require more effort on workers’ part to save on their own for retirement.

Do You Have the Golden Ticket To the Interview?

Arleen Bradley on October 24, 2014

Charlie Bucket needed a Golden Ticket to tour the Wonka Chocolate Factory. You need a Golden Ticket to get invited to interview. Charlie was lucky to find a ticket in a candy bar. You aren’t that lucky. You need a résumé that will get you to the interview.

The only duty your résumé has is to get you to the interview. It doesn’t get you a job, only the interview. After that, it’s up to you to get the job. Wonka only issued five tickets. Companies don’t invite many more than that to interview. You can’t buy an interview; your résumé has to show you are the best candidate available.
To be successful in its purpose, your résumé has to capture the attention of the reader within seconds for the reader to continue reading. Therefore, place your best information above the fold. Your accomplishments, achievements, honors, awards, skills, and other information should distinguish you from among all the other candidates.
To be read by a human, the résumé must turn up in a search of the application tracking database. Accomplish this by using keywords found in the job posting that will match the search criteria. The higher the match between your qualifications expressed by the keywords and the job requirements, the better chance your résumé gets read.
A résumé filled with keywords take practice and skill. It isn’t difficult after you get the hang of it. Isolating the terms that are keywords is easy to do. I isolate the terms into separate bullet statements then match the skills and experience of the candidate to each bullet statement. Once done, it is easy to insert the keywords into the proper places in the résumé.
Other elements are important in the creation of the resume. One–include only relevant information. Two–the format should be clean and easy to read. Three–avoid design elements that are not accepted by the application tracking system. And four–write a résumé that demonstrates what you can do for the company.
A résumé that follows these guidelines creates the Golden Ticket to the interview. While at the interview, you are under inspection to see if you match your résumé. Honesty and are in all your statements. Bragging is important, but there is a fine line between bragging and exaggerating.

Charlie Bucket was honest; kind and well-behaved. Charlie won the factory. If you want to win the job you need to be honest, kind and knowledgeable. Even though you are these things and more, you need to get to the interview. Your Golden Ticket is your precisely crafted resume.

Source: Arleen Bradley blog

Dispelling the myths of ageism — older workers are highly employable

Originally published Friday, October 24, 2014

THE older one gets, the more likely one will be subjected to age discrimination — stereotyping of and bias against people because of their age. A Duke University study found that 80 percent of respondents over age 60 experienced ageism: denigration, disrespect and marginalization by societal norms. Stereotypes of older adults abound — slow, incompetent, frail, demanding and unproductive.

Most mature workers are physically active, mentally competent and an integral part of the workforce. Thanks to medical advances, more people live longer and healthier lives than ever before. According to the Social Security Administration, a man reaching age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 84.3; a woman turning age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 86.6.

Increases in life expectancy contrast sharply with the current decline in economic security among older adults. While some workers delay retirement because they receive satisfaction from their work, many more postpone retirement because of financial pressures. During the recession, older employees accounted for a disproportionate number of layoffs. Often it takes a year for older jobseekers to find work. The jobs they find often pay less.

When older workers are treated unfairly because of age bias it constitutes age discrimination. Nearly two-thirds of workers aged 45 to 74 have seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace, according to a 2013 study. Instead of receiving respect and recognition for their abilities, accomplishments, knowledge, wisdom and decades of experience, they were viewed as having many more negative traits than positive traits. More important, their ages negatively affected advancement and evaluations, according to an analysis in the Journals of Gerontology.

It is especially maddening to be disregarded as a viable employee because of myths associated with age in our youth-obsessed culture. In response to the myth that older workers are slow, less productive and not quality oriented, the Robert Half agency says older workers are more conscientious and productive.

What about the myth that older workers cost more to pay and cost more to insure? Many of the nation’s top corporations’ bosses say that they receive substantial return on investment when hiring mature workers. The cost is offset by quality, performance and other factors. Some studies show that it costs more to insure a 30-year-old with dependents. Eighty percent of mid- and large-sized employers say there’s no significant difference in insurance costs.

The myth about older workers having high turnover rates or missing work due to illness is refuted by the fact that older workers are less likely to change jobs. Their reduced turnover can lower employers’ expenses. The Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center found that workers over age 45 had a lower rate of sick time than workers between the ages of 17 and 44 years. Additionally, older workers have fewer workplace accidents.

Age discrimination is wrong and unfair. It can have a devastating impact on the financial security and independence of older workers. Unlike race, religion or gender discrimination, age discrimination cases are virtually impossible to win because of a 2009 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, 23,000 age discrimination complaints were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2012, a 20 percent increase over 2009. The court’s decision has made it easier for employers to engage in discrimination without fear of losing litigation.

In Congress, the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act (S1391/HR2852)is a bipartisan attempt to address the higher standard of proof of age discrimination set by the court. The act would establish the same standards that exist for race, gender or religious discrimination cases. Without a concerted national advocacy effort, it is unlikely that Congress will enact this legislation. Every organization representing older adults should urge Congress to act and ask all Americans to demand fairness and justice for older workers.

Tony Provine is chair of the Seattle/King County Advisory Council for Aging and Disability Services, the designated agency on aging for King County.

5 tips for older workers looking for work:

A new generation of retirees is heading back to work. Here’s some advice on how to snag one of those encore jobs

Encore! Encore! One more time.

That’s what many retired Canadians want to do: Go back to work, try something new, perhaps with fewer hours and less pay, but find a way to keep active, stay engaged and get paid for it.

Longevity is rising, we’re healthier and so the traditional notion of retirement has faded. Some want to work because they have to and others because they want to.

But if our needs are changing, our employers aren’t keeping up with the times, says Adina Lebo, chair of the downtown Toronto chapter of the Canadian Association of Retired People (CARP). Attitudes in the workplace are geared to forcing older workers out of full-time work and few employers have mechanisms to offer a transition to part-time work.

“The workforce is built to push people out at 65,” says Lebo, who joined CARP four years ago after a 30-year career in the film and TV industry. “While people are looking for a continuation of their career, or a way to apply their skills in a new area, the doors are often closed.”

CARP sponsored a job fair in Toronto last year to link employers with 50+ candidates. There was plenty of interest from companies with franchising and sales opportunities. The former requires an investment on your part and the latter uses your networks to sell products or services.

“There’s no ageism in sales,” says Lebo. “It’s on commission, so there’s no risk to the employer. They use you and your community to sell, so that was wide open.”

There are jobs out there for older works, but competition is stiff. For many, the first step is dusting off their resumes and polishing rusty interview skills.

Marie Bountrogianni, a former Ontario cabinet minister and currently Dean of the G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University, has some advice. Here are her five top job hunting tips for older workers.

Three things to avoid in an interview:

Talking about your age: “This is always tricky,” says Bountrogianni, who has a Ph.D. in education and was chief psychologist for the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board before entering politics.

“Employers are not allowed to ask about your age, but they often hint at it. Talk around your age in constructive ways. [For example,] you can indicate that because you no longer have little children you have a lot of flexibility around scheduling.

Tipping your tech hand: “Be careful. Don’t just say you use Facebook and Twitter. Show how you have used social media to increase sales, or promote an event, so they won’t think you are on it all the time.”

Don’t say, I’m ready for a change: “While it may be very true, it sounds like you are bored, and have grown stale in your current job,” Bountrogiann says.

Two ways to spruce up your resume:

Age proof it: Don’t go back to the beginning of your career. Choose the experiences that relate to the job you are applying for. Do not put in specific dates for jobs or schooling.

Show what you have done: Use a functional, rather than chronological resume, so that you can bundle your experiences without dating them and relate skills to the job advertised.

Bountrogianni says employers want to know you’re not planning to coast at their expense.

They also want to know you are still current, so she advises taking courses in your field of interest and keeping up to date. Always have questions in an interview, because employers want you to be interested in them and about their job.

Source: Toronto Star

Concerns raised for ageing female workers

By ONE News Reporter Renee Graham

Wednesday October 22, 2014 Source: ONE News

There’s concern for ageing female workers with new research showing there’s a large number working low-paid and physically demanding shift work.

Researchers say women will be particularly vulnerable as they age if they can no longer cope with long hours at work and their incomes suffer as a result.

The paper entitled Employment of Older Women in New Zealand was commissioned by the National Advisory Council on the Employment of Women, which consults with the Ministry for Women’s Affairs.

The author, Dr Paul Callister, says baby boomers aren’t following old patterns, and many will continue to work into their 70s or 80s.

“For instance, in 20 years’ time, those 65-years and older could occupy 12% of the workforce, up from 5% in 2011. And nearly 30% of women this age may be in paid work, significantly increasing tax contributions and spending capacity”.

Traci Houpapa, chief executive of the National Advisory Council on the Employment of Women, says women are over-represented in jobs where physical labour, low pay and shift work can make on- going employment difficult as these workers age.

“These sectors include aged care and the health sector, where career mobility is essential when existing employment is unsustainable due to high physical demand or when long hours of work are required.”

The research says more and more women over the age of 65 are working too. In 1995 2% of women 65 or older were working, compared to 2014 where 14% are now employed.

It also predicts by 2061 30% of the female population will be older than 65.

Tracy Houpapa says ageism is a major barrier to older women wanting to work.

“Age discrimination can also have an impact, reducing the ability of older workers to change careers later in life if issues start to occur, therefore more flexible, sustainable employment is required to enable older workers to stay in the labour force.

“Ageing female workers with low qualifications are therefore seen as a vulnerable sector in the labour force and Dr Callister’s presentation is an initial step to progress NACEW’s work in this area,” she says.

The Council plans to do further research before it comes up with recommendations for the Government on how it can better improve conditions for an ageing female workforce.

Will Australia’s economy age gracefully?

Australia’s ageing population presents a considerable challenge to Australia’s economy. After a generation of favourable demographics and a once-in-a-lifetime terms-of-trade boom, it will be old-fashioned hard work and Australian ingenuity that determines our economic future.

One of the least discussed causes of Australia’s economic success over the past half century has been our favourable demographics. Until recently, Australia had a relatively young population, flush with working age individuals and supported by rising labour force participation among women.

That period of unprecedented success is over and the labour market participation rate is now on the skids. That is set to continue over the next generation due to the retirement of the ‘baby boomers’ and relatively low fertility rates in Australia.

Reserve Bank of Australia assistant governor Chris Kent was in Adelaide today discussing some of the implications of an ageing population on Australia’s economy. Clearly this is an issue that is on the mind of the RBA’s top brass, and rightly so, with deputy governor Philip Lowe providing an excellent analysis back in March (Coming to terms with Australia’s stark economic reality, March 13).

The implications of this trend are vast and will fundamentally change the composition of Australia’s economy. The first concern is the number of workers, with the economy becoming increasingly reliant upon a smaller share of the population to drive growth and finance government services. The share of workers in health and aged care services is set to boom but the demand for teachers may ease.

More broadly domestic demand is expected to shift increasingly towards services. According to Kent, “services constitute a larger share of total consumption for older people than for the rest of the population.” The retail sector is set to be one of the biggest losers from Australia’s ageing (A new grey area for retailers, March 24).

Kent notes that “we can expect that ageing will lead to extra demand for services at the same time that it weighs on the supply of services.” That will inevitably push the price of services higher relative to goods. But we shouldn’t blame ageing entirely for this trend, productivity growth has been much higher in goods manufacturing than in services for a long time.

There are two other issues that warrant further discussion: government finances and risk-taking.

It’s widely accepted that an ageing population will narrow the tax base and weigh on tax revenues. At the same time it will increase the demand for government health and aged care services. The Productivity Commission estimates that an ageing population could increase aged care, aged pension and health care expenditures by around 7 percentage points of nominal GDP by 2059-60.

The aged pension will come under increasing pressure due to insufficient retirement savings. Superannuation has helped to some extent, but remains insufficient for many ‘baby boomers’. Unfortunately, the superannuation tax system largely favours the wealthy, offering tax concessions that accrue primarily to those who don’t need them.

Although as noted by RBA governor Glenn Stevens, there is also the risk that ‘baby boomers’ hold too much of their wealth in property and are particularly susceptible to a market correction (Have baby boomers made a big investment mistake? September 4).

Finally, Kent notes that older Australia’s have less tolerance for risk, “including those associated with new business ventures, developing new products and services, and pursuing innovation more generally.” None of that is a surprise but it suggests that an ageing population may create an impediment for productivity.

However, according to Kent an ageing population does provide some opportunities. But I’m not sure that longer working lives is what a lot of people have in mind when they think of opportunities.

Nevertheless, higher wages will encourage some older workers to either stay in the workforce or re-enter it. To some extent we are already seeing this process in action with the participation rate among older Australians increasing significantly over the past decade. That is a trend that should continue over the next generation.

Another important point is that a longer lifespan will necessitate a rise in national savings. That said, the performance of our superannuation industry — which charges exorbitant fees for subpar work — suggests that this may not be as beneficial as it first seems.

An ageing population presents a considerable challenge for the Australian economy. Innovation and productivity growth are the two keys to solving the riddle and they will ultimately determine our long-term standard of living.

The obvious issue though is that an ageing population tends to weigh on productivity and risk-taking. It also encourages greater consumption of services — a sector where productivity growth has historically been relatively low.

Nevertheless, we will have to boost investment and productivity growth if we hope to maintain our recent economic gains.

Source: Business Spectator

Good luck, Virginia

13:40:PM 17/10/2014
Virginia Trioli

Virginia Trioli.

It was such a lovely card – how thoughtful of a viewer to send me a note! Flowers and fruit adorned the front, and the cheeriest of greetings kicked off the epistle – “Hi Virginia!” Then it went on, travelling down a one way-road I’d been booked on many, many times before.

“I watch you every morning … and felt I had to write as I feel you are definately (sic) in need of a makeover.

“First, please get your hair cut short and get rid of those straggly bits around your neck, and maybe a few highlights!!!

“Next, the glasses – ugh! Go for LIGHT coloured frames as with your dark eyes black makes you look ‘owlish’. You will be very pleasantly surprised!

“Next, the clothes: get rid of blacks and browns, very ageing. Take notice of the other newsreaders (female) – light and bright is the go! Dare I say, did you obtain your clothes from charity shops?

“This letter is NOT meant to insult you but so that you look 40 not 60.

“Good luck, looking forward to seeing a NEW VIRGINIA.”

It says a great deal about the nature of my correspondence as a woman on television that this letter really was nothing out of the ordinary. I’ve received many such missives and these notes are read and discarded, along with the anti-Semitic rants written in block capitals and UNDERLINING, the long tracts alleging international banking conspiracies, and the regular Herald Sun frothings by Andrew Bolt.

As I have in the past, I shared it on Twitter and thought nothing more. When you’re half Italian, a Leo and raised by a strong mother, it takes a hell of a lot to shake your sense of self. I also happen to know exactly what’s in my wardrobe. And the shameful amount of money I’ve spent on it. Enough said.

But that wasn’t the end of the matter: it went, as they say, viral, and all day long the howls of outrage echoed across Twitter and the wider media. It was only after the matter started to be reported in the US that I realised what kind of nerve this had touched. Then The Atlanta Journal Constitution made this mild remark: “Working in the Australian media industry is particularly tough on women, who are more often judged on their fashion sense than their news reporting capabilities.”

That’s how they see us? A backward nation of boors intent on making women in television a bunch of dolly birds? It didn’t, and doesn’t, square with the substantial number of women I know and admire who work in TV. But the Journal had hit on a key difference between the nations, and my letter-writer had unwittingly done the same.

Because the point of this letter was not fashion, or style, or even attractiveness – it was the problem of age, and that is the greatest failing of all: my critic wrote so that I might “look 40 not 60”.

But one day, with luck, I will be 60, and if I don’t fall victim to vanity and cosmetic surgery, I might even look 60. I will be nowhere near retirement and nowhere near ready to give up work. Nonetheless I will still hope to have a meaningful career, perhaps still on TV.

Is that an impossible aspiration in Australia, when looking 60 is such an abhorrent thought?

The American experience cuts a great contrast to us, where women such as Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer and Christiane Amanpour have enjoyed long and illustrious careers in the public eye even as they age. But the mere appearance of ageing in a woman on Australian TV is enough to have most executives yanking her off air and replacing her with someone younger.

This is going to be an interesting challenge. Will a craggy-faced women be as acceptable to you on the box as, say, a craggy-faced Barrie Cassidy is? (Said with love, Barrie.) I am lucky to be part of a formidable generation of women journalists, at the ABC and the commercial stations, who are all going to become wiser, better and older in front of your eyes: you OK with that?

PM’s pension guru Ros Altmann backs older workers and gives a warning: Retirement can turn into a nightmare – let us work on if we want to

By VICKI OWEN, FINANCIAL MAIL ON SUNDAY

19 October 2014

Speaking out: Ros Altmann iscalling for an end to ageism in the workplace

The pensions revolution being driven by Chancellor George Osborne has been hailed as giving new freedoms to people over their own money. But it has also been met with a rash of criticism, most notably that giving people access to their pension pots will encourage imprudent spending and expose them to the danger of being mis-sold financial plans.

Ros Altmann, former director-general of Saga and the Government’s Business Champion for Older Workers, laughs when asked about these risks.

Altmann, a career woman of 58, is herself slap bang in the age group for which she has become Britain’s de facto spokeswoman. She is adamant that the reforms are good news and implies that sceptics are showing a lack of respect for ordinary people.

‘There is a risk that people will be enticed to spend their pension, but I trust that people are responsible enough to keep the fund until they need it, rather than just falling for a con person with a get-rich-quick scheme,’ she says.

The concerns over the pension reforms (see box, below) have been widely voiced in the City. Tom McPhail, head of pensions research at leading financial services company Hargreaves Lansdown, said: ‘The Chancellor appears to be creating the perfect environment for a mis-selling scandal.’

Altmann, speaking after a meeting with the Treasury to discuss the reforms, insists they are a response to mis-selling, rather than a likely cause of more.

‘People forget mis-selling has already been happening and it’s widespread. The pensions industry has been selling people inappropriate products for a long time. People had not been educated enough to understand what they were doing when they bought annuities,’ she said.

The sale of annuities, in which the buyer exchanges their pot of money for guaranteed annual income for life, has led to a raft of scandals.Many pensioners are thought to have been sold poor rates of income.

Altmann’s talks with the Treasury have focused on the guidance and advice that will be made available alongside the new freedoms and she is confident they will get it right. ‘The Government is putting a system in place to educate people, and this guidance is not being driven by people trying to sell something,’ she says.

Meanwhile, as an adviser on the over-50s, she is trying to promote the idea that continuing to work is better than retirement. She says: ‘The retirement dream is about stopping one day, waking up and having no work. For many people that ends up as a nightmare, but it’s too late.’

And she warns that ageism in the workplace will spell economic decline. Her contention that workers are being ‘written off’ as soon as they reach their 50s comes after figures revealed that record-breaking numbers of older workers were fuelling the self-employment boom.

The number of self-employed people aged 65 and over has doubled to 428,000, in the past five years, while the income of self-employed workers has fallen to an average £207 a week, compared with £300 a week ten years ago.

Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, has said: ‘The figures nail the myth perpetuated by Ministers that the UK’s new self-employed workers are all young entrepreneurs. In fact, almost half are over 50.’

Altmann says: ‘Recruitment agencies don’t take you seriously, employers don’t take you seriously. If you’re in your 50s, job centres are saying, “Well, at your age, love, maybe you should retire”. They’re busy focusing on the young.

‘All across the western world, given the demographics, this is a recipe for economic decline. We’ve got an economic boost that we’re not using.

‘What is so in need of reform is that, for most people, how and when you retire isn’t a personal choice. It is something that happens to you because of other circumstances.

‘We can do better than that. Even if people want to keep on or get back into work, very often they can’t. That’s a waste. There’s still so much ageism in the workplace. The anecdotal evidence is that as soon as you reach your 50s you are considered “past it”.

‘I think it’s a carry-over from the olden days in the 1950s, 1960s even, maybe, the 1970s, when the predominant work was quite heavy manual labour. Most people in their 50s and 60s were brought up with the idea that 60 or 65 was the magic age and you didn’t work after that. It’s only as they get there that they realise that isn’t how it needs to be.

‘Employment has always been geared to that, pensions have been geared to that, and therefore employment attitudes are also geared for that.

‘Most human resources people are quite young and if they are told that someone in their 50s or 60s is old and that we need to focus on hiring the bright young things, that is who is valued, irrespective of your talent.

‘There is also a concern, which is a hangover from the final-salary pension-scheme days, that you’re much more expensive to employ. Now there’s a different mind set. People don’t mind taking less if they’re working less, or if they’re doing a different job that gives them better work-life balance.

Altmann also debunks the myth that if an older worker keeps their job, a younger one cannot get work. ‘That is an economic nonsense,’ she says. ‘I’ve got studies that show that a higher employment rate for older people is associated with a higher rate for younger people.

‘It makes sense that if there are more older than younger people and they are not working, and haven’t got huge incomes, they can’t spend that much any more. Over time, that means both young people and older people lose out.’

Altmann, who has three children and lives in North London, began her career in banking and has worked at the former US Group Chase Manhattan, Rothschild and NatWest, before Saga.

Naturally, she has no plans to retire yet and could be talking about herself when she says: ‘If you’re relatively healthy and relatively fit and don’t want to stop work, why would you expect someone to just write themselves off?’

How sweeping reforms hand freedom back to savers

Chancellor George Osborne announced sweeping reforms to the way Britons can take private pensions in his April Budget this year.

For the first time all savers will no longer need to buy an annuity with their pension pots.

Instead of being allowed to take just 25 per cent of the pot as a lump sum on retirement and purchase an ‘income for life’ with the remainder, from April next year they will be able to withdraw the entire sum at the age of 55 and do with it as they wish.

As is the case now 25 per cent can be taken tax-free, with the rest counting as taxable income.

The 55 per cent ‘death tax’ on pension pots has also been axed, allowing pensions to be passed on tax-free in some cases.

Osborne said: ‘People who have worked all their lives should be free to choose what they do with their money, and that freedom is central to our long-term economic plan.

‘From next year they’ll be able to access as much or as little of their defined contribution pension as they want and pass on their hard-earned pensions to their families tax-free.’

Pensions Minister Steve Webb has said: ‘If people do get a Lamborghini, and end up on the state pension, the state is much less concerned about that, and that is their choice.’

Simon Laight, of law firm Pinsent Masons, has said: ‘The Government wants the pensions industry to deliver low-cost flexibility.

‘For that you need scale. We will see a “land grab” as providers rush to develop new pensions and capture market share.’

A survey by Fidelity Worldwide Investment of 500 investors retiring in the first year of the new pension freedoms found nearly half had not begun to assess their options.

Older need not mean less productive

Radha Basu

The Straits Times

Tuesday, Oct 14, 2014

Professor Ursula Staudinger, who heads a centre dedicated to research on ageing at Columbia University, says old age and productivity are compatible but only if mindsets are changed so older people are motivated to continue working.

Rosa Finnegan loved sharing jokes, giggled like a young girl and went to work every day in Needham, the small Massachusetts town she called home. When she finally retired late last year, the snowy haired great-grandmother of three was 101.

Born in 1912, the year the Titanic sank, Mrs Finnegan died in June this year, four months after celebrating her 102nd birthday.

She may have been old, but she was certainly not the odd one out at her company, Vita Needle. The average age of workers there is 74.

But the family-run business which manufactures needles and steel pipes is no social enterprise, says Professor Ursula Staudinger, who heads a centre dedicated to research on ageing at Columbia University in New York. “This is a profitable company that has discovered the value of older workers.”

Vita Needle’s success, in many ways, reflects the findings of numerous research studies that show that human beings can remain productive and engaged right till the end of their lives, says the distinguished professor of psychology who has spent more than a decade leading inter-disciplinary research on the productive potential of human ageing.

“Old age and productivity can indeed go very well together,” Prof Staudinger told The Sunday Times. She was in Singapore at the invitation of the Tsao Foundation to deliver the charity’s annual lecture last Thursday on the opportunities presented by ageing.

In a field dominated by negative narratives – think the proverbial silver tsunami – the psychologist’s message is one of hope and promise. “We are not only living longer, but we are also healthier than ever before,” she says. “Rather than fret about ageing, we must realise that we have this enormous gift of a longer life. And we must use it well.”

An ageing population and fewer children will mean lower productivity only “if we continue doing things the way we have been in the past” by keeping labour market regulations and retirement age unchanged, for instance.

However, if people are encouraged to spend longer working lives, not necessarily in continuous employment, but with breaks for periods of further education and tending to family needs, then it is possible to be economically productive way past 70.

Companies and countries alike must begin to focus on “qualitative growth”, rather than “quantitative growth”, says Prof Staudinger.

She was born and raised in Germany which, barring Japan and Italy, has the highest proportion of older people in the world, with a fifth of its population aged 65 and above. Singapore’s elderly population is set to nearly triple in 20 years, a feat that took Europe a century to achieve.

“By qualitative growth, I mean we must intensify the investment in each individual, we bring the health and educational level up and we change the labour market qualitatively so that people are motivated to work – and maintain their productivity.”

This, she notes, is very different from a worker being forced to work because he cannot afford to retire.

Her research on ageing in the workplace has provided valuable insights into what makes older workers tick.

A study that looked at assembly-line workers at a car factory in Germany showed that workers who changed tasks at least three times over 16 years tended to function better cognitively than colleagues who did not, other things remaining equal.

“You have to have enough variability in what you do. The simpler the job, the more frequent these changes have to be.”

A crucial determinant of productivity is the mindset of the company, and especially of supervisors.

“If everyone believes these workers are less productive and this is reinforced by supervisors and company leaders, then this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the end, the older worker believes what everyone else believes. If you are not entrusted, if you are not challenged, you will not live up to the challenge,” she says.

Incentives from the state and changes in labour laws to keep the current cohort of older workers employable are one way forward, says Prof Staudinger, noting that the Singapore Government has taken several steps in this direction.

It is subsidising the wage bills of companies that hire older workers and announced earlier this month that, from next year, eligible public servants will be offered re-employment till they turn 67.

When they reach the statutory retirement age of 62, eligible workers are already offered re-employment up to the age of 65 under the Retirement and Re-employment Act which came into force in 2012.

However, current rehiring laws in Singapore give companies the option to reduce a worker’s pay when they are rehired.

Prof Staudinger warns that care must be taken to see that state support does not end up being used against the interests of workers themselves.

In Europe, state incentives to companies that hire and retain older workers are tied to criteria that ensure the workers are not discriminated against. For instance, companies are required to pay older workers the same wage they would pay a younger worker for the same job. And strict minimum wage laws ensure older workers are not exploited as cheap labour.

“While crafting laws, you have to anticipate misuse and devise ways to avoid it.”

radhab@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Oct 12, 2014.