Older, wiser and still working
Thursday September 18 2008
Michael Parkinson sat in his black leather chair for the final time as presenter of his iconic TV chat show, Parkinson, in December last year at the age of 71.
Fans of the show would agree that the final airing was just as good as any he fronted over his 26-year career, and this is a classic example of how the retirement age of 65 in employment contracts should be a thing of the past.
Here in Ireland, former assistant Garda commissioner Martin Donnellan championed the cause when he took a case to the High Court to challenge the regulation requiring him to retire at the age of 60. He was unsuccessful, but it made people think about the whole issue of working beyond a designated retirement age.
In most countries, the idea of a fixed retirement age was introduced during the 19th and 20th centuries — before then, the absence of pension arrangements meant that most workers continued to work until death, or they relied on personal savings or the support of family or friends.
Age Action Ireland is in favour of doing away with the retirement age of 65 and is calling on the Government to bring in measures to encourage people to work beyond that age.
“When the age of 65 was set, people lived until their late 60s or early 70s. Older people are stronger than they ever were and many don’t want to give up work. An estimated 8pc of people over 65 are still working and Ireland has one of the highest average exit ages in Europe, at 62.4 in 2002. The EU has set a target of 65.4 by 2010,” says Eamon Timmons, Age Action head of advocacy and communications.
“If we’re going to achieve that, people need to be encouraged to work longer through incentives such as being allowed to pay a PRSI stamp towards a pension, as well as organisations looking at retaining older staff. We’re experiencing the opposite of this, with a lot of discrimination against people aged 50 years and over.”
He says there are two groups of people who work beyond the standard retirement age. The first group love their job and feel they still have a lot to contribute — Donnellan, who was Ireland’s longest-serving detective, seems to fall into this category. The other group wants to avoid a big drop in income when they realise what their pension entitlements are.
Anecdotal evidence suggests there’s a growing number of people over 65 doing part-time work, for example security or caretaking. Timmons says phased retirement should be made available to Irish workers, as well as flexible working such as job sharing, so we make the most of the resources we have.
“Research by the Economic and Social Research Institute shows people don’t necessarily retire at 65 because they want to, but rather because they don’t want a high-pressure job five days a week.
“Something has to change; it’s just a matter of when. Eurostat predicts that by 2050, one third of the EU population will be over 65 years of age, which means that 20 million workers will leave the workforce by 2050 if this retirement age remains the same. We don’t believe it’s sustainable from an economic point of view and neither is it in employers’ interests,” says Timmins.
Pictured: Martin Donnellan, former assistant Garda commissioner, who challenged the legislation forcing him to retire at 60
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- Sorcha Corcoran
