Posts Tagged “mature age workers”

Working beyond 60: older workers optimistic about later retirement

BY MICHELLE HERBISON ON 28 JULY 2015

The days of retirement at 60 are becoming a memory for many, with 72% of older workers now willing to stay in the workforce for longer and 71% feeling optimistic about the idea.

These findings come from a new report from Financial Services Council and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Older Workers Report 2015, based on a survey of 500 Australians aged between 50 and 74.

72% of respondents said they were keen to continue working regardless of their financial situation. But financial security is the most-commonly cited reason for wanting to work until later in life (61%). 23% said they did not have enough money to retire.

Other top reasons for working later include personal enjoyment, a sense of accomplishment, and freedom and independence.

The findings come following the Federal Government’s Intergenerational Report, released earlier this year, that outlines that Australians will continue to have one of the world’s highest life expectancy rates, with a projection that 40,000 people will be aged over 100 by 2055.

The Intergenerational Report says over-65s will increase from 12.9% of the workforce this year to 17.3% in 2055.

The Older Workers Report found one in three people between 60 and 64 expect to work for another five years, but just 10% expect to do so for another 10 years.

Age discrimination is declining

The report found age discrimination towards older workers more than halved to 13% in this survey. In 2012, the figure was at 28%.

Financial Services Council CEO Sally Loane says: “We are beginning to see a positive shift in how society and the workplace values older workers. Employers are increasingly embracing the unique skills and experience that older workers contribute and are introducing programs to train and retrain mature staff.”

61% have taken up training or upskilling services after being offered them at their workplaces. 41% expect to be paid the same as any equivalent employee.

17% of older workers have been made redundant since turning 50, with males more likely than females to apply for another job when this happened.

69% of older workers have not applied for a new job since turning 50.

Nearly half of the survey respondents reported experiencing no barriers to continuing to work.

Changing attitudes towards retirement

65% of older workers are satisfied they have sufficient funds to retire, an increase from 50% in 2012.

55% would prefer to work part-time for the remainder of their time in the workforce. One in three say workplace flexibility will encourage them to continue working.

Commonwealth Bank general manager retirement Nicolette Rubinsztein says:

“Australians’ attitudes towards retirement are changing. No longer is the road to retirement such a defined path but providing older workers with the support and flexibility to continue working until the time is right for them to retire and for reasons they choose.

“Flexible working arrangements have played an important role in encouraging older workers to stay in the workforce, allowing them to maintain a healthy work/life balance and provide the freedom and financial means to attend to their personal and family needs.”

Source: Marketing

Are workplaces ready for older workers?

It’s the latest thing in retirement: not retiring. More workers are planning to continue in the workforce past age 65, and some plan to never retire.

Nearly 60 percent of 50-plus workers plan to continue working past age 65, and 82 percent of workers age 60 and over have the same goal, according to a white paper published in June by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies.

Workers’ plans could represent a healthy trend in light of researchsuggesting that mental stimulation helps delay cognitive decline. But old workers will only be able to follow through on those plans if employers are in fact ramping up en masse to accommodate them in later life.

That is not the case, at least not yet. Just 4 percent of the employers responding to a 2014 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management reported that they have a formal strategy for recruiting or retaining older workers. And research by JP Morgan found that while 67 percent of all current workers expect to retire after age 65, in reality, just 23 percent do.

Labor force participation by older workers is increasing, but “workers’ expectations may exceed today’s labor force realities,” said Catherine Collinson, president of the Transamerica center.

The problem is particularly acute for women, since they tend to accumulate less in retirement savings and they have longer life expectancies. A new report from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., found that the average income of women over age 65 is just 55 percent of men in the same age bracket.

“Women face systemic barriers that hinder their ability to access a secure retirement, barriers that begin long before they reach the retirement age,” wrote Sen. Murray to her colleagues on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

That’s not to say that all employers have their head in the sand. In fact, one major industry, health care, often dominates lists of the best employers for older workers. (In addition, women make up about 80 percent of the health-care workforce.)

Ann Doshi, a nurse educator at Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey, is still going full steam at “65-plus,” as she puts it, or just shy of 66. Doshi has been working in operating rooms for 40 years, first as a scrub technician, then as an operating room nurse, and now as an educator for other operating room nurses.

“To be in this kind of position, they prefer someone with experience,” she said. “It’s one thing to use theory, and another to have the hands-on experience.” But Doshi thinks the same may not hold true in other professions. “I think you find that in many fields, when people reach certain ages, the mentality is ‘maybe we can get someone in here who is fresh,’ ” she said.

Baby boomers represent about 40 percent of the Atlantic Health workforce, said Lesley Meyer, corporate manager of human resources.

Carol Indri, 50, an operating room nurse at Morristown and one of Doshi’s trainees, also finds the hospital and its parent company, Atlantic Health, very open to workers in the AARP years. But she said she knows people who have not been nearly so lucky. She pointed to a friend of hers whose husband left her when she was in her early 40s, who has been “barely able to keep a job” and is now “on the welfare side of life.”

Employers may soon be forced to make more provisions for older workers. People over age 65 accounted for 12.6 percent of the U.S. population in 1990, but their share is expected to increase to 16.8 percent by 2020 and 20.9 percent by 2050, according to Census Bureau calculations.

For now, though, older workers would do well to have a plan B for their so-called golden years.

Source: CNBC

Report urges over-50s to prepare for career change

MOST older Australian workers are not planning for their careers in later life, only updating their skills at “crisis points” such as job loss or health problems, a new report shows.

The National Seniors’ report, released on Thursday, showed almost four out of five workers aged 50 or older had either never, or “not recently”, spent time planning their careers.

The finding comes despite the retirement age being set to rise to 70 in coming years and calls from Treasurer Joe Hockey for older workers to be prepared to contribute for longer.

The report showed most older workers were not investing the same amount of time or energy in career planning as school leavers or university graduates.

From more than 1800 responses to a survey on work and career planning, only 34% said career planning was very important or somewhat important to their quality of life. Half of those surveyed said it was not important.

The chief executive of National Seniors, Michael O’Neill, said the report showed many were only reacting to “crisis points, such as job loss or ill health”.

“But planning is vital for broadening work options, improving salary and extending working lives,” he said.

Mr O’Neill said when older Australians lost a job, a career change or training could save them from the dole queue.

The report also found 28% of respondents felt they did not need to be in paid or unpaid work and 18% believed career planning would not help them.

Mr O’Neill said older workers were often focused on their retirement finances, housing and health.

But he said it was still important to know how to map out a new career path or update their skills in case their retirement plans went awry.

Source: Sunshine Coast Daily

Over 50? 5 Smart Tips for Landing a New Job

By Chad Brooks, Business News Daily Senior Writer

For many people, finding a new job after the age of 50 becomes more difficult.

After losing a job, older job seekers, compared to younger counterparts, receive fewer job offers, search for weeks longer and are ultimately less likely to find re-employment, according to a new study recently published in the Psychological Bulletin.

Based on data from the U.S. government’s 2014 Displaced Worker Survey, researchers discovered that job seekers over age 50 are likely to be unemployed 5.8 weeks longer than someone between the ages of 30 and 49, and 10.6 weeks longer than workers in their 20s. Additionally, the odds of being re-employed decrease by 2.6 percent for each one year increase in age.

“There’s very robust evidence that as an individual moves beyond age 50, they experience a large penalty toward how quickly they will find a job,” Connie Wanberg, one of the study’s authors and a professor at the University of Minnesota,said in a statement.

There a variety of factors that contributing to these results.[Surprise! Older Workers Have Fewer Senior Moments ]

“The obstacles to re-employment success stem not just from employer views about older workers, but also from age-related differences in knowledge, skills and abilities and the kind of jobs people want,” said Ruth Kanfer, one of the study’s co-authors and a professor at Georgia Tech University. “As individuals age, their skills and abilities change and they may often seek a different type of job.”

Kanfer points to construction workers who carry heavy objects as an example.

“If they change occupations or move into a different field, that is likely going to slow their search,” she said.

Smaller social networks, marketplace needs, search strategies and what workers want out of a new job are among the other factors that are contributing to older workers’ lack of success in finding new jobs.

To help older job seekers increase their chances of finding work, Wanberg and Kanfer offer several tips:

Stay current: It’s critical that workers never stop trying to learn new skills. Even workers who are currently employed should look for ways to grow their skills and stay current with their industry.
Boost job search strategies: Older workers are often unfamiliar with the ways job searches are conducted today. It is important they comb a variety of job search websites and understand the applicant requirements and hiring trends for the type of job they’re looking for.
Know what you’re up against: Older workers should fully understand that it is possible to find a new job, it’s just likely it will take a little longer than expected. Knowing this going into the process will help them stay persistent in their search.
Define your goals: When looking for a new job, older workers need to think about which aspects of a new job are most important to them and set clear goals and priorities to guide their search.
Build social networks: When aging, there is a tendency to narrow social networks, which can impact how long it takes to get a new job. It’s critical to maintain and expand on social networks when getting older.

The researchers believe the study shows there is a clear need for a better understanding of how younger and older job seekers differ in their re-employment goals.

“Job loss is really difficult for older workers, many of whom have probably already been thinking about retiring or slowing down, but had not yet reached a level of financial security to permit retirement,” Kanfer said. “Losing your job at this point in life creates a real conundrum – should I put myself through the strain of a job search or just retire for now?”

The study was co-authored by Darla Hamann, a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, and Zhen Zhang, a professor at Arizona State University.

Source: The New Daily

6 Things Older Workers Can Do to Find a Job Faster

By Chad Brooks, Business News Daily Senior Writer

While finding a new job is a difficult task for nearly everyone who has been unemployed, it’s especially tough on older workers, new research finds.

Half of those between the ages of 45 and 70 who’ve been unemployed during the past five years are still out of work, according to a study from AARP. Specifically, 38 percent remained unemployed, while 12 percent decided to stop working.

“As the economy continues to recover and the unemployment rate falls, there are still far too many people struggling,” Debra Whitman, AARP’s chief public policy officer, said in a statement. “Many Americans want to work as long as possible, but our survey confirms that, once unemployed, it can take a long time for older workers to find a quality job.”

Overall, 45 percent of jobseekers over the age of 55 were out of work for at least 27 weeks. The research revealed several strategies that could be contributing to the success of those who have been able to find new jobs.

The reemployed were more likely than the unemployed to contact employers directly and to reach out to their networks of contacts to find jobs. By comparison, the reemployed were less likely to rely on relatives and friends to find out about job opportunities.

Other strategies that were effective for those who found work included:

Using a headhunter
Consulting professional associations
Checking online job boards
Using online social networks
Visiting a public employment agency

When searching for new jobs, older workers need to be prepared to find a position in a new field. Occupational change was a common occurrence among the reemployed, with more than half having a job different from the one they had before becoming unemployed.

“Some of those ‘occupational transitions’ may have been the result of a decision to do work that was more personally rewarding and interesting,” the study’s authors wrote. “In most cases, however, the change was probably necessary to find a job.”

Finding new jobs, however, didn’t always translate into a return to normalcy for older workers.Among those who did find work, 48 percent were earning less money than in their previous jobs. The study revealed that the longer they were out of work, the larger the impact it had on their earning power. Nearly 60 percent of the reemployed who suffered a long-term spell of unemployment were earning less in their current job, compared with 41 percent who had been among the short-term unemployed.

While they may have suffered financially, not everything about their new jobs was a step backward for older workers.

Nearly half had better working conditions, while nearly 40 percent said the number of hours they worked and their shift were better. The study also discovered that roughly one-third of the reemployed said their current jobs provided more use of their experience, education and skills, more autonomy and more responsibility than their old jobs.

“As the results of this study indicate, the unemployment experiences of older workers are varied and their outcomes uncertain,” the study’s authors wrote. “More detailed analyses of the data are needed to help us better understand the plight of the older unemployed, even as the economy recovers, and to develop meaningful policies and programs to help them.”

The study was based on surveys of 2,492 people between the ages of 45 and 70 who had been unemployed at some time during the past five years.

Source Business News Daily

Forget Gen Y, female baby boomers are the changing face of the workforce

BY KIRSTEN ROBB / JUN 16, 2015

The number of older Australians participating in the workforce is rising, with an increased number of Australian women working past the age of 55, according to research from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Social and Economic Research.

The study comes off the back of the Intergenerational Report, which recently highlighted the ageing workforce and the importance of employers taking older employees into consideration.

The wide-ranging research, titled Two Decades of Change: The Australian Labour Market 1993–2013, shows the number of both men and women in the workforce over the age of 55 had increased significantly in the last two decades.

In particular, it showed a sharp rise in the number of women aged 60-64 still in the labour force, jumping from 15.2% in 1993 to 45% in 2013. The number of women aged 55-59 working in 2013 had hit 65.3%, from 36.8% in 1993.

Likewise, the number of men aged 65 or older working or looking for work doubled in the two decades to reach 17% in 2013, while the number of those aged 60-64 had increased from 48.3% to 62.5%.

Roger Wilkins, who co-authored the report with Mark Wooden, told Smart Company the swell of older Australian women participating in the labour market reflected a broader societal shift in female labour force participation.

“Twenty years ago, older females had very low participation rates, so there was an enormous amount of scope for change there,” Wilkins says.

“Twenty of thirty years ago, younger women began heading into career-type employment… Those women are now aged 50 to 60, so a lot of the increase is reflecting that.”

Wilkins says the steadily increasing age of pension eligibility over the past 20 years is also reflected in the research.

Asked if this ballooning of an ageing workforce will continue, Wilkins says while it is speculative, there is “certainly still plenty of room for a further increase of older workers”.

“I would be surprised if it got up to levels [in other brackets], but there is considerable scope for a further increase in the participation rate of 55 and over,” he says.

Meanwhile, Nikki Brouwers, chief executive of workplace rehabilitation and health specialist group Interact, says the research is a reminder for small businesses to consider employing older Australians. Brouwers recommends employers consider several ways of attracting and retaining an older workforce.

“Firstly, employers need to consider the flexibility of work hours. Older workers will often want to work earlier and finish earlier,” she says.

“There’s also the consideration of learning styles. Online learning for example might not be the best approach for older workers.”

Lastly, Brouwers says there are other issues such as ergonomics, lighting and movement that employers should take into account.

“What small business employers need to realise is they don’t need to be experts, they just need to engage with their workers, because at the end of the day, they will be best able to articulate what they need,” she adds.

This article first appeared at Women’s Agenda sister publication, Smart Company.

Long-term unemployment: Sharp rise taking a toll on Australia’s wellbeing

Date: June 6, 2015

Matt Wade

Senior writer

EXCLUSIVE

Australia’s growing long-term unemployment is getting little attention from the Abbott government. Photo: Tamara Voninski

Shadowland: The silent jobs crisis facing the government

The Abbott government faces a growing jobs challenge as the number of people trapped in long-term unemployment hits a 16-year high, taking a growing toll on Australia’s collective wellbeing.

The number of people out of work for a year or more has risen by 18 per cent over the past year to 188,000, seasonally adjusted Bureau Statistics figures show. That’s the highest number since the late 1990s and almost three times more than mid-2008, just before the global financial crisis.

The Fairfax-Lateral Economics Wellbeing Index – which uses a range of indicators to measure changes in national welfare – shows the wellbeing cost of long-term unemployment reached a record $3.9 billion in the March quarter. This was driven by a sharp rise in long-term unemployment in the quarter.

The index’s author, economist Nicholas Gruen, said the result underscored the economic damage caused by long-term unemployment.

“In the last quarter the rise in long-term unemployment cost the economy more than the fall in the terms of trade,” he said. “Yet the fall in the terms of trade is a major talking point of economic pundits. Long-term unemployment is barely mentioned.”

A major economic cost of long-term unemployment is skills atrophy – when skills deteriorate through lack of use and training. But there is also a huge human toll – those out of work for a long period are more likely than others to become socially isolated and suffer mental and physical illnesses.

The rate of long-term unemployment – defined as being out of work for 12 months or more – reached a 13-year high of 1.5 per cent last month, up from just 0.6 per cent in 2008. The overall unemployment rate last month was 6.2 per cent. The number of people unemployed for two years or more reached 92,500 last month, the highest level in the 15 years the bureau has been publishing data on that indicator.

Last month’s federal budget included a $330 million Youth Employment Strategy that will target young job seekers in areas of high unemployment and vulnerable young people most at risk of long-term unemployment. A $1.2 billion wages subsidy scheme was changed to encourage firms to take on older workers.

“The new measures will focus on making job seekers more employable, reducing the costs of taking on new staff, and bringing job seekers and employers together,” the assistant employment minister, Luke Hartsuyker, said.

But the chief executive of the Australian Council of Social Service, Cassandra Goldie, said much more will be needed to deal with the “untold but persistent” long-term unemployment challenge.

Overall, the Fairfax-Lateral Economics Wellbeing Index – which provides a broader measure of wellbeing than traditional economic indicators – fell last quarter despite stronger than expected growth in gross domestic product. The index report said the quarterly contraction was driven by “the significant skills atrophy produce by the rise in long-term unemployment.” High rates of obesity and untreated mental illness were also significant drags on Australia’s collective wellbeing last quarter.

The number of people out of work for a year or more fell to 65,000 in mid-2008 but has climbed steadily ever since.

Tony Nicholson, the executive director of welfare agency the Brotherhood of St Laurence, said the rate of long-term unemployment among young people has been rising rapidly.

“The transition from school to work in the modern economy is now riskier than it was two or three decades ago,” he said.

Source: SMH

The professor who wants to cut older workers’ pay to make them more employable

Professor of management at London Business School Lynda Gratton was in Sydney for the World Business Forum. Dominic Lorrime

by Misa Han

Employers should experiment with pay cuts and salary freezes for older workers to overcome age discrimination at work, a leading human resource professor says.

But any company that follows her advice would risk a public campaign run by advocacy group National Seniors Association.

Lynda Gratton, a London Business School professor and HR consultancy Hot Spots founder who advises big banks and insurance companies in Australia, said companies should consider not giving employees pay rises as they get older, or even giving them a pay cut.

Ms Gratton, who was in Sydney on Wednesday to address the World Business Forum, said: “I think one needs to be a bit more creative about how we think of age and salary structure.

“One difficulty is in any corporation, because people’s salary goes up every year, the older you are often the more you’re paid and that makes older people more expensive.

“So one of the things we’ve been playing around with is, would it be sensible for people’s salary not to go up just because they’re getting older and that would make them easier to employ? Would it be possible to think about their salary going down and they do more mentoring and coaching work?

“I think we’ve only ever seen age and salary as a straight line that goes up but why don’t we think about it as a line that goes down?”

OUT OF TOUCH

National Seniors Australia chief executive Michael O’Neill said her comment was “completely out of touch” with the Australian industrial relations system and he would be prepared to fight against any bank or insurance company that reduced employees’ pay on the basis of their age.

“I would be happy to run a campaign against any institution that chooses to reduce workers’ pay because of their age and I’m sure consumers will react,” he said.

“We recognise the contribution older Australians make in the workplace. They should be remunerated fairly and it’s nonsense to say otherwise. Negotiating pay based on a birth certificate is clearly unacceptable.”

Age Discrimination Commissioner Susan Ryan said Ms Gratton’s comments did not apply to the Australian industrial environment.

“In general people are not paid more just because they had birthdays,” she said. “Most people negotiate their pay with their employer.”

Ms Ryan said in some cases workers might want a less-demanding role as they get older.

“Both the employer and the employee may agree on a different role, with a lesser pay package,” she said.

Most banks and financial sectors had been doing well in addressing age discrimination in the workplace, she said.

“They do it because their customers want to deal with experienced officers. So I think banks recognise the value of the experience of older employees to their business.”

LEGAL HOT WATER

Employers who took Ms Gratton’s advice might also find themselves in legal hot water.

Employment law firm Justicia managing partner Sarah Rey warned that employers who gave staff pay cuts or salary freezes purely on the basis of their age exposed themselves to the risk of unlawful age discrimination.

“Ultimately anti-discrimination laws prevent employers from discriminating on a variety of grounds. So if you are treating someone poorly and it has nothing to do with their performance, then that would be discrimination. If you’re looking to treat them less favourably it has to be something other than age,” she said.

More older workers are projected to remain in the workforce beyond the traditional retirement age of 65. But a survey commissioned by the Age Discrimination Commission found in the past two years more than half of jobseekers over 50 were discriminated against on the basis of age.

The Treasury’s Intergenerational Report in 2015 predicts the workforce participation rate among those older than 65 will jump from 12.9 per cent in 2015 to 17.3 per cent in 2055.

To encourage employment of older workers, the government has introduced a grant of up to $10,000 to employers who hire workers older than 50 who have been unemployed for six months or longer.

Ms Gratton said while she was not aware of companies pursuing her pay strategy, in practice older workers were already taking pay cuts as they quit their jobs and moved into different jobs, such as consultancy roles.

HAPPENS ANYWAY

“I think in labour market it happens anyway because people leave corporations and they get jobs that pay them less. I think in reality it is happening but I don’t think corporations acknowledge that.”

One way of thinking about salary could be linked to child rearing, she said.

“One could actually say the time when people need most money is when they are in their 30s, when they have young kids to look after. When they are getting paid more in their 40s and 50s is actually when they don’t require as much money.”

Ms Ryan said Ms Gratton’s comment about the expenses related to child-rearing responsibilities did not reflect the diversity of the nation’s families.

“Many in their 50s have got their second families. If they have a second family and a second mortgage they would be in a terrible situation.”

Source: AFR

A billion shades of grey

An ageing economy will be a slower and more unequal one—unless policy starts changing now

WARREN BUFFETT, who on May 3rd hosts the folksy extravaganza that is Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders’ meeting, is an icon of American capitalism (see article). At 83, he also epitomises a striking demographic trend: for highly skilled people to go on working well into what was once thought to be old age. Across the rich world, well-educated people increasingly work longer than the less-skilled. Some 65% of American men aged 62-74 with a professional degree are in the workforce, compared with 32% of men with only a high-school certificate. In the European Union the pattern is similar.

This gap is part of a deepening divide between the well-educated well-off and the unskilled poor that is slicing through all age groups. Rapid innovation has raised the incomes of the highly skilled while squeezing those of the unskilled. Those at the top are working longer hours each year than those at the bottom. And the well-qualified are extending their working lives, compared with those of less-educated people (see article). The consequences, for individuals and society, are profound.

Older, wiser and a lot of them

The world is on the cusp of a staggering rise in the number of old people, and they will live longer than ever before. Over the next 20 years the global population of those aged 65 or more will almost double, from 600m to 1.1 billion. The experience of the 20th century, when greater longevity translated into more years in retirement rather than more years at work, has persuaded many observers that this shift will lead to slower economic growth and “secular stagnation”, while the swelling ranks of pensioners will bust government budgets.

But the notion of a sharp division between the working young and the idle old misses a new trend, the growing gap between the skilled and the unskilled. Employment rates are falling among younger unskilled people, whereas older skilled folk are working longer. The divide is most extreme in America, where well-educated baby-boomers are putting off retirement while many less-skilled younger people have dropped out of the workforce.

Policy is partly responsible. Many European governments have abandoned policies that used to encourage people to retire early. Rising life expectancy, combined with the replacement of generous defined-benefit pension plans with stingier defined-contribution ones, means that even the better-off must work longer to have a comfortable retirement. But the changing nature of work also plays a big role. Pay has risen sharply for the highly educated, and those people continue to reap rich rewards into old age because these days the educated elderly are more productive than their predecessors. Technological change may well reinforce that shift: the skills that complement computers, from management expertise to creativity, do not necessarily decline with age.

This trend will benefit not just fortunate oldies but also, in some ways, society as a whole. Growth will slow less dramatically than expected; government budgets will be in better shape, as high earners pay taxes for longer. Rich countries with lots of well-educated older people will find the burden of ageing easier to bear than places like China, where half of all 50-to-64-year-olds did not complete primary-school education.

At the other end of the social scale, however, things look grim. Manual work gets harder as people get older, and public pensions look more attractive to those on low wages and the unemployed. In the lexicon of popular hate-figures, work-shirking welfare queens breeding at the taxpayer’s expense may be replaced by deadbeat grandads collecting taxpayer handouts while their hard-working contemporaries strive on.

Nor are all the effects on the economy beneficial. Wealthy old people will accumulate more savings, which will weaken demand. Inequality will increase and a growing share of wealth will eventually be transferred to the next generation via inheritance, entrenching the division between winners and losers still further.

One likely response is to impose higher inheritance taxes. So long as they replaced less-fair taxes, that might make sense. They would probably encourage old people to spend their cash rather than salt it away. But governments should focus not on redistributing income but on generating more of it by reforming retirement and education.

Age should no longer determine the appropriate end of a working life. Mandatory retirement ages and pension rules that discourage people from working longer should go. Welfare should reflect the greater opportunities open to the higher-skilled. Pensions should become more progressive (ie, less generous to the rich). At the same time, this trend underlines the importance of increasing public investment in education at all stages of life, so that more people acquire the skills they need to thrive in the modern labour market. Today, many governments are understandably loth to spend money retraining older folk who are likely to retire soon. But if people can work for longer, that investment makes much more sense. Deadbeat 60-year-olds are unlikely to become computer scientists, but they could learn useful vocational skills, such as caring for the growing number of very old people.

Old power

How likely are governments to make these changes? Look around the rich world today, and it is hard to be optimistic. The swelling ranks of older voters, and their disproportionate propensity to vote, have left politicians keener to pander to them than to implement disruptive reforms. Germany, despite being the fastest-ageing country in Europe, plans to cut the statutory retirement age for some people (see article). In America both Social Security (the public pension scheme) and the fast-growing system of disability benefits remain untouched by reform. Politicians need to convince less-skilled older voters that it is in their interests to go on working. Doing so will not be easy. But the alternative—economic stagnation and even greater inequality—is worse.

Source: The Economist

7 Things I Learned About Friendship From Working In An Intergenerational Office

I am 65, and for the past four years, HuffPost’s office in Los Angeles has been my work home. I am the oldest breathing soul in the building, something that I’ve grown accustomed to. I happen to like my officemates a great deal — and believe that that affection is reciprocated. But without a doubt, being the oldest employee comes with some distinctions — and life lessons. Here are a few:

1. You don’t have to be in the same life stage in order to be friends with someone.
Right now, we are celebrating two recent engagements in my office. Marriage proposal stories are such fun to hear, especially if you are a boomer who came of marriage age at a time when getting down on one knee or asking the woman’s parents for permission would likely have revoked your commune membership. Since my own husband asked me centuries ago to marry him with something like “Wanna?” I appreciate the thoughtful care that went into Ashley and Meredith’s proposals.

I am also genuinely interested in hearing the details of the weddings-in-the-works. I find myself cautioning them to not lose sight of the marriage in planning for the wedding.

In my current life stage, I’m preparing for our oldest child to leave for college in a year. My officemates have a wealth of information about the college application process and the college experience itself since it wasn’t that long ago for many of them. When my daughter applies next year, she will have benefited from the collective wisdom of these fairly recent graduates.

Our milestone events may not be the same, but the enthusiasm we have for one another’s important occasions is real. They came to my son’s Bar Mitzvah ceremony and I almost made it to Anna’s first-house party.

2. I don’t have to go to karaoke night to be part of the group.
Every office has a culture. Ours has a hipster vibe, where fun is encouraged. We work hard and we play hard. We have game nights and cocktail-tasting events. We have drink carts on Thursdays, share free bagels on Fridays and have corporate days where we volunteer. I pick and choose my spots but am always included by all. I like that. It’s the way it should be — even if I don’t show up most of the time.

When you think about it, we’ve always compartmentalized our friends. I have Mom friends and friends from my single days. I have friends from within the world of journalism and friends who are neighbors. I also have movie friends and hiking friends and trying-new-restaurant friends. I think it’s fine for boomers to have millennial friends.

3. If I’m their mentor, they are my educators.
I’m maternal by nature, which means I like to share the experience of my years — mostly about life, but sometimes about work too. And of course old dogs can be taught new tricks. Which makes us perfect. I like to think that I push the bar up journalistically here in the office. With my colleagues’ help I’ve become one of those 65-year-olds who knows more about the Internet than all her same-age friends.

4. We share indignation.
Except for my insistence that real music died about 10 years after Woodstock, our views are largely aligned. One thing I love is their support whenever I go off on age discrimination. Think about it: Many millennials can’t get their foot in the corporate door and many boomers like me have no plans to go anywhere. That alone could trigger animosities among lessers.

But in our case, they share my indignation over the small stuff that makes me explode. For example, companies that recruit for “digital natives.” I love that expression — digital natives — except when I see it in a job posting. Digital native means someone who was born with a cellphone in his or her hand. It’s been showing up lately in job postings when the company wants to hire someone young and has been cautioned against by H&R offices worried about age discrimination suits. I’m not sure how long the term “digital native” will be around, but I do know that my young friends agree with me that older people have a place in the workforce — and that we in fact enrich the office.

5. I am a walking history book, and they are the future chapters.
As digital natives — well, they are — they often encourage me to talk about the good old days of print journalism. They were shocked when I told them how 35 years ago, a county judge in New Jersey booted me out of the courtroom where I was reporting on a trial because I was wearing a pant suit. Ladies, he told me, wore skirts to his court and to do otherwise was showing disrespect. The next day, every female reporter I knew came to court with me — all of us wearing pant suits.

My young colleagues were equally stunned when I explained how I was told that I couldn’t be promoted because to do so would take a paycheck out of the hands of a “family breadwinner,” and how more than once I was asked why I didn’t just get married and have kids.

From my colleagues, I have learned how the new dress-for-success look is often my jeans and boots. They are my go-to resource for all things current. I now know where to shop, eat, drink and vacation. Heck, I even got Netflix to be able to join in the conversation.

6. Cash v. Card.
This continues to be our big divide. What is it with millennials and their aversion to cash? They all use plastic all the time for everything, including buying a soda off the food truck. I carry cash. It comes in handy for handing over to a mugger, which is precisely why I suspect they don’t carry any.

7. Technology made our lives easier.
At the risk of sounding trite, there really is an app for everything. And I thank my young colleagues for sorting through the clutter and letting me know which ones will really make my life easier. I knew about Uber, but not UberEats — which delivers a fresh lunch to my office in under five minutes. (H/T Joe Satran, HuffPost Taste writer.) From Healthy Living writer Anna Almendrala I learned about Withings, an interactive app that tracks your exercise, food, steps, weight, etc. She also was the first one to show me MyFitnessPal. And I’m a total fan of Venmo, a peer-to-peer money transfer system.

Probably more to the heart of things, they taught me that technology isn’t the big scary beast that so many of my own-age peers feel the need to dismiss disparagingly

Source: Huffingtonpost.com

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