For our own health - and for the good of the economy - there is an urgent need for more New Zealanders to delay leaving the workforce and to think of 70 as the new 50, researchers say.
Two weeks ago, after just one year off throughout 51 years spent nursing, Maryanne Purdie, a 69-year-old who lives on Auckland’s North Shore, threw in her job.
“It was nothing to do with age,” she says of her decision to quit. “It was just that I’d had a complete and utter gutsful of nursing.”
She says that until this year, she had loved being a nurse, but now she thinks the endless attention to rules, regulations and paperwork has taken pleasure out of the job without, in her opinion, improving the care of patients.
Quite apart from her dissatisfaction with it, Purdie is too busy for paid work. Her husband, Karl, 70, will shortly come home from working on a construction project in Afghanistan, then the couple have plans to attend Maryanne’s sister’s 40th wedding anniversary in Rotorua, stay with family in Wellington for Christmas, and in January take their yacht away for a few weeks’ sailing. They will also fit in occasional care of their grandchildren.
“If I was still working I wouldn’t be able to do all that, and I’m fed up with trying to fit everything in around work,” Purdie says.
“I thought, ‘No, bugger it, I can’t be bothered.’ It won’t be quite so good being without the money but it will be nice to have time, and to think that if my daughter rings and asks if I can give her a hand, I will be able to.”
By having worked beyond their eligibility for New Zealand Superannuation, the Purdies are part of an increasing trend for older people to stay longer in the paid workforce. In fact despite a widespread perception of prejudice against older workers New Zealand, which in so many statistics compares unfavourably with other OECD nations, is one of the leading countries for retaining people aged 65 and over in the labour force.
In at least one respect, the growing numbers of employed older people should be no surprise. Whereas 60 used to be the age of retirement, many people nowadays will reach that age in good health and still with a third of their life ahead of them.
That change in life expectancy has obvious economic implications. In particular, the first baby boomers are due to reach 65 in two years’ time, beginning a comparatively rapid growth in older New Zealanders as a percentage of the population that will continue for the next 20 years. That trend is often both perceived and explained very negatively.
“People pick up images from the rest of society, and from the media, and from what politicians say,” explains Professor Alan Walker, director of the UK’s New Dynamics of Ageing Research Programme, who was in New Zealand last month as visiting fellow at the New Zealand Institute for Research on Ageing.
“If there is a negative attitude towards older people – and in my neck of the woods, politicians will sometimes refer to the ‘burden’ of an ageing population, or a ‘rising tide’ or ‘crisis’ – then those extreme terminologies create an impression in the public’s mind that ageing is a problem,” Walker told the Listener. “If the media emphasise that by overemphasising youth, then a picture builds up that says, ‘I’m 50, heavens above, there’s nothing left to live for’, which is crazy.
“It’s barely half your life and in the future it will be even less than that, because with European evidence we can predict that at least half the babies born in New Zealand now will live to be 100. It is historically unique. There has never been any society in the world that has experienced the longevity we in the developed world are experiencing. In theory, there’s no limit to life expectancy.”
In fact, the best-case predictions of New Zealand demographers are that over the next five decades, life expectancy for females could increase to reach 91.2 years by 2061 (compared with 82.2 years now) and 88.6 years for males (78.2 now). Internationally, there is concern that poor diet and sedentary lifestyles may affect the best-case scenario for life expectancy but so far there is no evidence of it.
Importantly, most of us would prefer our extra years to be in the middle, with a healthy, active life, rather than at the end, with survival simply being eked out. Walker agrees. “So we need to take a preventative perspective to midlife and have some policies and supports to help people address issues then, so they can have a longer period of activity.”
Walker has a phrase for it: “live longer, die faster”. “That’s the ideal that everyone wants. You live a full life for as long as possible, and then you drop off the end. People don’t want the constraints and lack of function that old age is often associated with. They don’t want to die in a long, drawn-out way.
“And most health-care costs arise at the end of life, so if our societies can compress that unwell phase to as small a part of the lifespan as possible, then the quality of life implications are massive.”
Walker says it is not simply a matter of government policy. There is a lot individuals can do to increase their own chances of a healthy old age. Many of the so-called “geriatric giants”, which cause either a lower quality of life in old age or death, have their roots in behaviours in midlife and younger.
“It’s why I am so keen on a lifespan approach,” says Walker. “We can track the impact on quality of life from childhood nutrition through to old age – so we can show that poor nutrition in childhood leads to high blood pressure in early old age. But the midlife is the main point when things start to go wrong. You might have an accident at work, or a stroke or a coronary, but all those things are preventable. And we can do something about them, like increasing vegetable intake and exercise.”
It is not only on people’s health that life’s events take a toll in older age. Older people may also have to grapple with their own setbacks at the same time as caring for their partners, other relatives or grandchildren, often without pay. Dr Sally Keeling, a senior research fellow at the New Zealand Institute for Research on Ageing, says that people have major “life shocks” at an increasing level from the age of 50.
“And if you do have life shocks, such as a compulsory redundancy, a business collapse, a family breakdown or family reconfiguration, or a major illness like a five-year battle with cancer in your 50s, and then you try to get back into recouping your lost peak-earning power, then it’s far more complex than a lineal pathway. We know that what happens to people in their 40s and 50s compounds.”
Keeling says this is especially true for women because they are likely to live longer than men, and to live alone. Therefore it is more likely to be women in their late 80s who end up on the brink of poverty.
“The work of people like Charles Waldegrave [a New Zealand researcher] shows that late-life poverty isn’t just about income, it’s about accumulation of assets over a lifetime.
“For most people that is represented in home ownership, so declining rates of home ownership, and rising rates of indebtedness in later life, are also affecting those long-term economic prospects.”
Keeling says finding the right policies is complicated and only likely to become more so. “The way people live their lives will only get more diverse. People don’t become more the same, they become more different. And that’s what a life-course perspective says – these things compound over time and interact.”
As mentioned, one of the measures in which New Zealand is doing well is in employment of older people. An obvious reasons for that is that since 1999, there has not been a compulsory retirement age in New Zealand. Although almost all New Zealand residents become eligible for superannuation when they turn 65, increasing numbers of people are in paid employment beyond that age.
A Statistics New Zealand paper released earlier this year about labour-force participation of those aged 65 and over showed that in 2006, 17% (or 1 in 6) older people were in paid work, compared with just 7% 20 years earlier. Unsurprisingly, younger superannuitants (those aged 65-69) were most likely to be working, with 43% of men and 25% of women in that age bracket engaged in either full-time or part-time work.
The report, by Mansoor Khawaja and Bill Boddington, also shows that older New Zealanders are extending their working life. In 2006, the participation rate for those aged 70-74 was the same as it had been in 1996 for those aged 65-69.
Although it may seem the trend for older people to stay in the workforce is a phenomenon that is occurring spontaneously and steadily, only 3.9% of the total labour force is aged 65 or over, and there are those who say that it is absolutely urgent that the trend is accelerated.
The Human Rights Commission’s Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner, Dr Judy McGregor, is one of those people. Although she is more than happy to see more research about ageing and employment, she thinks the time for talking has passed.
“We need to be at the sharp end of knowing what the good practices are that employers can use to retain people, and how we, as employees, can make ourselves employable for longer. That’s where we’re at.
“I see the retention of the sexagenarian workforce as critical. We need attitudinal change – the media exacerbates the stereotype that old is bad, unless it’s wine or art.”
McGregor argues that a national response to employability and workforce training is needed. And hinting that the age of eligibility for New Zealand Superannuation may be too low, and therefore providing people with an incentive to leave work, she says there is a problem “if the economic incentives around receiving NZ Super and staying at work don’t match”.
She also says different forms of workplace flexibility are required for older people than for parents of young children. Older workers may prefer something quite different – like three months on, three months off, for example.
“It’s very good that we are OECD-positive in relation to older people at work, but my hunch is that we need to treble that participation rate of the plus-65s in the workforce.
“I’m probably the only person game enough to say that because, to be quite honest, government policy-makers are scared of discussing the retention of older workers because they are afraid it will somehow abrogate people’s autonomy around when they decide to retire.
“I’m not suggesting people should be slaves to their computers or pickaxes – people should have choice, obviously – but we need to say to people that they are going to have to work for longer if they want to retain the same GDP and standards of living. That’s simply a fact and I don’t know why we don’t start talking about it sensibly rather than negatively.
“At the end of the day, New Zealand is facing long-term labour and skill shortages and the plus-65s are a pool of potential workers who can stick around and do some of the work.”
What’s more, the benefits in there being more older workers accrue not only to the economy. A US study has shown increased health benefits for older workers, even when research takes into account that it is more likely to be those who are healthier who choose to go on working. Whether it is the extra income, which might allow a better standard of living, or the social engagement or sense of purpose that makes workers healthier than their non-working counterparts, is not clear.
By 2026, 20% of New Zealand’s population will be 65 or older. From the late 2040s, 25% of New Zealanders will be in that age group. Given that a disproportionate part of the health budget already goes on older people, and with projections that the cost of New Zealand Superannuation will go from 4.3% of GDP to 8% by 2050, and the lost income tax if the workforce participation rate of older people stays low, then it is not surprising the impact of the baby boomers moving to retirement causes alarm.
But Walker believes it will only be a problem if things stay as they are now – and he says that will not happen and cannot happen. “Everything cannot stay the same and the simple answer is to encourage people to work longer. And to enable them to work longer. We can’t go on with a society that is ageing but, at the same time, gives privilege to youth and young people. It’s not possible.”
He says societies that do not prepare for an ageing workforce and an ageing society will not be competitive. “Leaving aside the quality of lifestyle, there is a purely economic argument that if we are to be competitive in the future, then we have to be competitive with an older workforce, so the message is clear.”
Although Prime Minister John Key has ruled out raising the age of entitlement for New Zealand Superannuation, Walker says it will happen eventually, “as it has to every other country”. But on its own, that will not be enough to prepare for an ageing society. “A lot of older people are driven out of the labour market by age discrimination and by ill health, so if you can combat both of those you create the basis for full sustainability of the superannuation scheme.”
He says the first pension schemes were founded in the 19th century when people might have expected 10-15 years of retirement. “Now we’re talking about 30-40 years. It’s obvious something has to shift.”
People need to stop thinking of their lifespan as comprising childhood, adulthood and old age, he says. “Longevity has knocked that for six because longevity is taking up half that life course. Old age is now being broken down into the ‘young old’ and the ‘old old’, or what are sometimes called the Third Age, from 50 through to, say, 75, and the Fourth Age, which is beyond that. And frankly, these days it’s not until you get to 75-plus or 80-plus that you begin to encounter the loss of function and the disabilities that have been for too long associated with later life.
“It is sometimes said that 70 is the new 50, so it used to be that at 50 you were old. It used to be the big landmark, the threshold of crossover, but people on the whole are as active now at 70 as they were at 50, back when 50 became that threshold. That’s the point. Most people in developed countries could go on working till they’re 70. The capacity is there, we need the support and encouragement.”
McGregor, who has been part of a Human Rights Commission project called the “national conversation about work”, is all too aware of the problems facing ageing employees.
The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) recently completed a survey of 65-year-olds, asking them what had prompted their decisions about work since they turned 60. Titled “To Work, or Not to Work?”, the study found that nearly two-thirds of those 65-year-olds in work cited needing the income as a reason for not retiring. A quarter of those in that category were paying off a mortgage, and people who were single were more likely than those who were partnered to mention income as a reason for working. Relatively few of those working anticipated they would work beyond the age of 70.
The study found that people who considered their health very good or good were significantly more likely to be employed than those who considered their health only fair, or worse. Those with mortgages were significantly more likely to still be in work, as were those whose partner also still worked.
Of those who were not working, just under a third said they would like to have had a job at the time of the interview [for the MSD survey]. “Most commonly, this was because they would like to have had some extra income, something to do, or contact with other people,” the report said.
“When asked why they were not currently working, the most common reasons given were that their health was not good enough, they thought employers did not want older workers, or they could not find a suitable job.”
In a relatively low-wage economy like New Zealand’s it seems the economic imperative to work will be a compelling factor for some, and is likely only to have been made more urgent by the recession.
A report released earlier this year by the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust, called “Workplace Age and Gender: Trends and Implications”, noted that the collapse in finance companies may result in an increase in older people staying in work or seeking work. Similarly, the recession hit just as the Statistics New Zealand’s report on the older workforce was being compiled, prompting the observation in that report that the downsizing or closure of companies and accompanying job lay-offs could mean limited employment prospects for older workers in the immediate future.
Other research has shown that once people are out of the workforce, especially for a long period, they have difficulty finding a job again. Maryanne Purdie, the nurse who retired two weeks ago, knows if she wants to return to work, she cannot be out of the workforce too long.
However, if she decides to work, she is in the right profession to find a job. The EEO Trust’s report presented the age and gender profiles of selected occupations, which emphasised once again the skills shortages in various areas, including IT, health professionals and engineering.
The information makes interesting reading for people concerned about their future employability. In 2006, for example, half of all nurses were aged 45-plus and a third were aged 50-plus. Those figures alone would seem to have serious implications for the demands on the nursing profession which, as with GPs, are likely to be increasing just as a substantial proportion of the health workforce is retiring.
Purdie says she is lucky to have had good health, but says she is also from an era with a strong work ethic. “We grew up in a time when there wasn’t a lot of money around. I left school at 16 and worked in an accountancy firm for two years until, at 18, I went nursing. Before that, God help me, I started working in McKenzies [a New Zealand chain store] in the school holidays when I was 11 and a half.
“I sometimes say I started working when I was 11 and a half, and I’ve never stopped.”
===Retirement? I’d go starkers and have to be put away===
For as long as the boys in her classes still jump to attention, when she roars at them, Dianne Moore says she will stay teaching.
Next year, she will celebrate both her 70th birthday and her 50th wedding anniversary, but she anticipates she will still be at Rotorua Boys’ High School, where she has taught full-time for 44 years.
“I definitely do not feel old enough to retire,” she says. “And I love my job.”
Moore gave up teaching in 1962 to have her two children, and in 1965 started part-time teaching at Boys’ High.
“In 1968 they asked me to go full-time and I’ve been there since. I wouldn’t have a clue how many days of school I’ve missed in 44 years but it would not be many.”
Moore, whose conversation is punctuated by constant laughter, says her only extra role at the school these days is head of the library. Otherwise she teaches English to senior students.
“I have not thought of retiring. One day I might walk in, take one look at the boys and think, ‘My God, what am I doing here?’ My friends who are retired say it is great fun and I think, ‘Yes, it might be for three months but then I’d go starkers and have to be put away.’
“I went to the doctor about four or five months ago because I’d hurt my back and I asked, ‘Do you think I should retire?’, and he said, ‘Good God, no.’ So I came out of the surgery and thought, ‘Oh well, looks like I’ll be working for another five years.’”
Moore’s husband, Graham, 70, has retired from education, though he still does relief work and extra jobs when principals in the area call on him. He is also a very helpful grandparent, having recently been called on by his daughter and son-in-law in Wellington to look after their three children, when the youngest was three, while ?the parents were overseas ?for 10 days.
The Moores are keen on exercise – Dianne swims 1.2km about three times a week, and the pair enjoy bush walking. They are about to get an Irish Setter puppy. Dianne laughs as she says the dog’s life expectancy will be 14 or 15 years and the couple’s daughter has already offered to take the dog, “should we have to be put away in that time”.
Four and a half years ago, Dianne became eligible for New Zealand Superannuation.
“When you’re nearly 65 you get called in to see them about superannuation and you have to give them your particulars. I went in and a very attractive man with hair just slightly greying at the sides came up to me and said, ‘Mrs Moore! How lovely to see you’, and it was someone I had taught when he was about in the fourth form. We sat down, and he took my particulars that he did not already know. I asked how much money I would get and he replied, ‘Mrs Moore, you’d better stay teaching because you’d never survive on the pension’, and I thought, ‘Great, I’ll take your advice.’ And that was it. But really I just don’t feel old enough to retire.”
How will she recognise when it’s time to stop?
“Over the 44 years, I have seen people hang in there too long and I think if I noticed my relationship with the kids deteriorating, I would be out of there like a shot. But I can still let out a roar and have all these little boys jump to attention. The younger ones I think are still a bit unsure of me. I think with boys you’d find out very quickly if you’d lost their respect.
“There are also lots of younger teaches whom I love. Sometimes they’ll come to me and say, ‘I can’t carry on in this job’, and I might say, ‘We all have bad days – try this technique and it might work.’ It’s nice to think they’ll come to me if things are not quite right. I wouldn’t use the term ‘mentor’ but if they want my help and ask, I am very happy to give it. It’s like repairing the boys’ jackets and shirts and trousers when they come rushing in with the whole backside out of their pants saying, ‘Miss, please can you help me?’”
Asked about the couple’s retirement plans, Moore sounds genuinely perplexed. “I guess we’ll just stay together till one of us pops off or till one or other of us has to take care of the one that loses the plot.”
Why 70 is the new 50
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For our own health - and for the good of the economy - there is an urgent need for more New Zealanders to delay leaving the workforce and to think of 70 as the new 50, researchers say.
Two weeks ago, after just one year off throughout 51 years spent nursing, Maryanne Purdie, a 69-year-old who lives on Auckland’s North Shore, threw in her job.
“It was nothing to do with age,” she says of her decision to quit. “It was just that I’d had a complete and utter gutsful of nursing.”
She says that until this year, she had loved being a nurse, but now she thinks the endless attention to rules, regulations and paperwork has taken pleasure out of the job without, in her opinion, improving the care of patients.
Quite apart from her dissatisfaction with it, Purdie is too busy for paid work. Her husband, Karl, 70, will shortly come home from working on a construction project in Afghanistan, then the couple have plans to attend Maryanne’s sister’s 40th wedding anniversary in Rotorua, stay with family in Wellington for Christmas, and in January take their yacht away for a few weeks’ sailing. They will also fit in occasional care of their grandchildren.
“If I was still working I wouldn’t be able to do all that, and I’m fed up with trying to fit everything in around work,” Purdie says.
“I thought, ‘No, bugger it, I can’t be bothered.’ It won’t be quite so good being without the money but it will be nice to have time, and to think that if my daughter rings and asks if I can give her a hand, I will be able to.”
By having worked beyond their eligibility for New Zealand Superannuation, the Purdies are part of an increasing trend for older people to stay longer in the paid workforce. In fact despite a widespread perception of prejudice against older workers New Zealand, which in so many statistics compares unfavourably with other OECD nations, is one of the leading countries for retaining people aged 65 and over in the labour force.
In at least one respect, the growing numbers of employed older people should be no surprise. Whereas 60 used to be the age of retirement, many people nowadays will reach that age in good health and still with a third of their life ahead of them.
That change in life expectancy has obvious economic implications. In particular, the first baby boomers are due to reach 65 in two years’ time, beginning a comparatively rapid growth in older New Zealanders as a percentage of the population that will continue for the next 20 years. That trend is often both perceived and explained very negatively.
“People pick up images from the rest of society, and from the media, and from what politicians say,” explains Professor Alan Walker, director of the UK’s New Dynamics of Ageing Research Programme, who was in New Zealand last month as visiting fellow at the New Zealand Institute for Research on Ageing.
“If there is a negative attitude towards older people – and in my neck of the woods, politicians will sometimes refer to the ‘burden’ of an ageing population, or a ‘rising tide’ or ‘crisis’ – then those extreme terminologies create an impression in the public’s mind that ageing is a problem,” Walker told the Listener. “If the media emphasise that by overemphasising youth, then a picture builds up that says, ‘I’m 50, heavens above, there’s nothing left to live for’, which is crazy.
“It’s barely half your life and in the future it will be even less than that, because with European evidence we can predict that at least half the babies born in New Zealand now will live to be 100. It is historically unique. There has never been any society in the world that has experienced the longevity we in the developed world are experiencing. In theory, there’s no limit to life expectancy.”
In fact, the best-case predictions of New Zealand demographers are that over the next five decades, life expectancy for females could increase to reach 91.2 years by 2061 (compared with 82.2 years now) and 88.6 years for males (78.2 now). Internationally, there is concern that poor diet and sedentary lifestyles may affect the best-case scenario for life expectancy but so far there is no evidence of it.
Importantly, most of us would prefer our extra years to be in the middle, with a healthy, active life, rather than at the end, with survival simply being eked out. Walker agrees. “So we need to take a preventative perspective to midlife and have some policies and supports to help people address issues then, so they can have a longer period of activity.”
Walker has a phrase for it: “live longer, die faster”. “That’s the ideal that everyone wants. You live a full life for as long as possible, and then you drop off the end. People don’t want the constraints and lack of function that old age is often associated with. They don’t want to die in a long, drawn-out way.
“And most health-care costs arise at the end of life, so if our societies can compress that unwell phase to as small a part of the lifespan as possible, then the quality of life implications are massive.”
Walker says it is not simply a matter of government policy. There is a lot individuals can do to increase their own chances of a healthy old age. Many of the so-called “geriatric giants”, which cause either a lower quality of life in old age or death, have their roots in behaviours in midlife and younger.
“It’s why I am so keen on a lifespan approach,” says Walker. “We can track the impact on quality of life from childhood nutrition through to old age – so we can show that poor nutrition in childhood leads to high blood pressure in early old age. But the midlife is the main point when things start to go wrong. You might have an accident at work, or a stroke or a coronary, but all those things are preventable. And we can do something about them, like increasing vegetable intake and exercise.”
It is not only on people’s health that life’s events take a toll in older age. Older people may also have to grapple with their own setbacks at the same time as caring for their partners, other relatives or grandchildren, often without pay. Dr Sally Keeling, a senior research fellow at the New Zealand Institute for Research on Ageing, says that people have major “life shocks” at an increasing level from the age of 50.
“And if you do have life shocks, such as a compulsory redundancy, a business collapse, a family breakdown or family reconfiguration, or a major illness like a five-year battle with cancer in your 50s, and then you try to get back into recouping your lost peak-earning power, then it’s far more complex than a lineal pathway. We know that what happens to people in their 40s and 50s compounds.”
Keeling says this is especially true for women because they are likely to live longer than men, and to live alone. Therefore it is more likely to be women in their late 80s who end up on the brink of poverty.
“The work of people like Charles Waldegrave [a New Zealand researcher] shows that late-life poverty isn’t just about income, it’s about accumulation of assets over a lifetime.
“For most people that is represented in home ownership, so declining rates of home ownership, and rising rates of indebtedness in later life, are also affecting those long-term economic prospects.”
Keeling says finding the right policies is complicated and only likely to become more so. “The way people live their lives will only get more diverse. People don’t become more the same, they become more different. And that’s what a life-course perspective says – these things compound over time and interact.”
As mentioned, one of the measures in which New Zealand is doing well is in employment of older people. An obvious reasons for that is that since 1999, there has not been a compulsory retirement age in New Zealand. Although almost all New Zealand residents become eligible for superannuation when they turn 65, increasing numbers of people are in paid employment beyond that age.
A Statistics New Zealand paper released earlier this year about labour-force participation of those aged 65 and over showed that in 2006, 17% (or 1 in 6) older people were in paid work, compared with just 7% 20 years earlier. Unsurprisingly, younger superannuitants (those aged 65-69) were most likely to be working, with 43% of men and 25% of women in that age bracket engaged in either full-time or part-time work.
The report, by Mansoor Khawaja and Bill Boddington, also shows that older New Zealanders are extending their working life. In 2006, the participation rate for those aged 70-74 was the same as it had been in 1996 for those aged 65-69.
Although it may seem the trend for older people to stay in the workforce is a phenomenon that is occurring spontaneously and steadily, only 3.9% of the total labour force is aged 65 or over, and there are those who say that it is absolutely urgent that the trend is accelerated.
The Human Rights Commission’s Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner, Dr Judy McGregor, is one of those people. Although she is more than happy to see more research about ageing and employment, she thinks the time for talking has passed.
“We need to be at the sharp end of knowing what the good practices are that employers can use to retain people, and how we, as employees, can make ourselves employable for longer. That’s where we’re at.
“I see the retention of the sexagenarian workforce as critical. We need attitudinal change – the media exacerbates the stereotype that old is bad, unless it’s wine or art.”
McGregor argues that a national response to employability and workforce training is needed. And hinting that the age of eligibility for New Zealand Superannuation may be too low, and therefore providing people with an incentive to leave work, she says there is a problem “if the economic incentives around receiving NZ Super and staying at work don’t match”.
She also says different forms of workplace flexibility are required for older people than for parents of young children. Older workers may prefer something quite different – like three months on, three months off, for example.
“It’s very good that we are OECD-positive in relation to older people at work, but my hunch is that we need to treble that participation rate of the plus-65s in the workforce.
“I’m probably the only person game enough to say that because, to be quite honest, government policy-makers are scared of discussing the retention of older workers because they are afraid it will somehow abrogate people’s autonomy around when they decide to retire.
“I’m not suggesting people should be slaves to their computers or pickaxes – people should have choice, obviously – but we need to say to people that they are going to have to work for longer if they want to retain the same GDP and standards of living. That’s simply a fact and I don’t know why we don’t start talking about it sensibly rather than negatively.
“At the end of the day, New Zealand is facing long-term labour and skill shortages and the plus-65s are a pool of potential workers who can stick around and do some of the work.”
What’s more, the benefits in there being more older workers accrue not only to the economy. A US study has shown increased health benefits for older workers, even when research takes into account that it is more likely to be those who are healthier who choose to go on working. Whether it is the extra income, which might allow a better standard of living, or the social engagement or sense of purpose that makes workers healthier than their non-working counterparts, is not clear.
By 2026, 20% of New Zealand’s population will be 65 or older. From the late 2040s, 25% of New Zealanders will be in that age group. Given that a disproportionate part of the health budget already goes on older people, and with projections that the cost of New Zealand Superannuation will go from 4.3% of GDP to 8% by 2050, and the lost income tax if the workforce participation rate of older people stays low, then it is not surprising the impact of the baby boomers moving to retirement causes alarm.
But Walker believes it will only be a problem if things stay as they are now – and he says that will not happen and cannot happen. “Everything cannot stay the same and the simple answer is to encourage people to work longer. And to enable them to work longer. We can’t go on with a society that is ageing but, at the same time, gives privilege to youth and young people. It’s not possible.”
He says societies that do not prepare for an ageing workforce and an ageing society will not be competitive. “Leaving aside the quality of lifestyle, there is a purely economic argument that if we are to be competitive in the future, then we have to be competitive with an older workforce, so the message is clear.”
Although Prime Minister John Key has ruled out raising the age of entitlement for New Zealand Superannuation, Walker says it will happen eventually, “as it has to every other country”. But on its own, that will not be enough to prepare for an ageing society. “A lot of older people are driven out of the labour market by age discrimination and by ill health, so if you can combat both of those you create the basis for full sustainability of the superannuation scheme.”
He says the first pension schemes were founded in the 19th century when people might have expected 10-15 years of retirement. “Now we’re talking about 30-40 years. It’s obvious something has to shift.”
People need to stop thinking of their lifespan as comprising childhood, adulthood and old age, he says. “Longevity has knocked that for six because longevity is taking up half that life course. Old age is now being broken down into the ‘young old’ and the ‘old old’, or what are sometimes called the Third Age, from 50 through to, say, 75, and the Fourth Age, which is beyond that. And frankly, these days it’s not until you get to 75-plus or 80-plus that you begin to encounter the loss of function and the disabilities that have been for too long associated with later life.
“It is sometimes said that 70 is the new 50, so it used to be that at 50 you were old. It used to be the big landmark, the threshold of crossover, but people on the whole are as active now at 70 as they were at 50, back when 50 became that threshold. That’s the point. Most people in developed countries could go on working till they’re 70. The capacity is there, we need the support and encouragement.”
McGregor, who has been part of a Human Rights Commission project called the “national conversation about work”, is all too aware of the problems facing ageing employees.
The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) recently completed a survey of 65-year-olds, asking them what had prompted their decisions about work since they turned 60. Titled “To Work, or Not to Work?”, the study found that nearly two-thirds of those 65-year-olds in work cited needing the income as a reason for not retiring. A quarter of those in that category were paying off a mortgage, and people who were single were more likely than those who were partnered to mention income as a reason for working. Relatively few of those working anticipated they would work beyond the age of 70.
The study found that people who considered their health very good or good were significantly more likely to be employed than those who considered their health only fair, or worse. Those with mortgages were significantly more likely to still be in work, as were those whose partner also still worked.
Of those who were not working, just under a third said they would like to have had a job at the time of the interview [for the MSD survey]. “Most commonly, this was because they would like to have had some extra income, something to do, or contact with other people,” the report said.
“When asked why they were not currently working, the most common reasons given were that their health was not good enough, they thought employers did not want older workers, or they could not find a suitable job.”
In a relatively low-wage economy like New Zealand’s it seems the economic imperative to work will be a compelling factor for some, and is likely only to have been made more urgent by the recession.
A report released earlier this year by the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust, called “Workplace Age and Gender: Trends and Implications”, noted that the collapse in finance companies may result in an increase in older people staying in work or seeking work. Similarly, the recession hit just as the Statistics New Zealand’s report on the older workforce was being compiled, prompting the observation in that report that the downsizing or closure of companies and accompanying job lay-offs could mean limited employment prospects for older workers in the immediate future.
Other research has shown that once people are out of the workforce, especially for a long period, they have difficulty finding a job again. Maryanne Purdie, the nurse who retired two weeks ago, knows if she wants to return to work, she cannot be out of the workforce too long.
However, if she decides to work, she is in the right profession to find a job. The EEO Trust’s report presented the age and gender profiles of selected occupations, which emphasised once again the skills shortages in various areas, including IT, health professionals and engineering.
The information makes interesting reading for people concerned about their future employability. In 2006, for example, half of all nurses were aged 45-plus and a third were aged 50-plus. Those figures alone would seem to have serious implications for the demands on the nursing profession which, as with GPs, are likely to be increasing just as a substantial proportion of the health workforce is retiring.
Purdie says she is lucky to have had good health, but says she is also from an era with a strong work ethic. “We grew up in a time when there wasn’t a lot of money around. I left school at 16 and worked in an accountancy firm for two years until, at 18, I went nursing. Before that, God help me, I started working in McKenzies [a New Zealand chain store] in the school holidays when I was 11 and a half.
“I sometimes say I started working when I was 11 and a half, and I’ve never stopped.”
===Retirement? I’d go starkers and have to be put away===
For as long as the boys in her classes still jump to attention, when she roars at them, Dianne Moore says she will stay teaching.
Next year, she will celebrate both her 70th birthday and her 50th wedding anniversary, but she anticipates she will still be at Rotorua Boys’ High School, where she has taught full-time for 44 years.
“I definitely do not feel old enough to retire,” she says. “And I love my job.”
Moore gave up teaching in 1962 to have her two children, and in 1965 started part-time teaching at Boys’ High.
“In 1968 they asked me to go full-time and I’ve been there since. I wouldn’t have a clue how many days of school I’ve missed in 44 years but it would not be many.”
Moore, whose conversation is punctuated by constant laughter, says her only extra role at the school these days is head of the library. Otherwise she teaches English to senior students.
“I have not thought of retiring. One day I might walk in, take one look at the boys and think, ‘My God, what am I doing here?’ My friends who are retired say it is great fun and I think, ‘Yes, it might be for three months but then I’d go starkers and have to be put away.’
“I went to the doctor about four or five months ago because I’d hurt my back and I asked, ‘Do you think I should retire?’, and he said, ‘Good God, no.’ So I came out of the surgery and thought, ‘Oh well, looks like I’ll be working for another five years.’”
Moore’s husband, Graham, 70, has retired from education, though he still does relief work and extra jobs when principals in the area call on him. He is also a very helpful grandparent, having recently been called on by his daughter and son-in-law in Wellington to look after their three children, when the youngest was three, while ?the parents were overseas ?for 10 days.
The Moores are keen on exercise – Dianne swims 1.2km about three times a week, and the pair enjoy bush walking. They are about to get an Irish Setter puppy. Dianne laughs as she says the dog’s life expectancy will be 14 or 15 years and the couple’s daughter has already offered to take the dog, “should we have to be put away in that time”.
Four and a half years ago, Dianne became eligible for New Zealand Superannuation.
“When you’re nearly 65 you get called in to see them about superannuation and you have to give them your particulars. I went in and a very attractive man with hair just slightly greying at the sides came up to me and said, ‘Mrs Moore! How lovely to see you’, and it was someone I had taught when he was about in the fourth form. We sat down, and he took my particulars that he did not already know. I asked how much money I would get and he replied, ‘Mrs Moore, you’d better stay teaching because you’d never survive on the pension’, and I thought, ‘Great, I’ll take your advice.’ And that was it. But really I just don’t feel old enough to retire.”
How will she recognise when it’s time to stop?
“Over the 44 years, I have seen people hang in there too long and I think if I noticed my relationship with the kids deteriorating, I would be out of there like a shot. But I can still let out a roar and have all these little boys jump to attention. The younger ones I think are still a bit unsure of me. I think with boys you’d find out very quickly if you’d lost their respect.
“There are also lots of younger teaches whom I love. Sometimes they’ll come to me and say, ‘I can’t carry on in this job’, and I might say, ‘We all have bad days – try this technique and it might work.’ It’s nice to think they’ll come to me if things are not quite right. I wouldn’t use the term ‘mentor’ but if they want my help and ask, I am very happy to give it. It’s like repairing the boys’ jackets and shirts and trousers when they come rushing in with the whole backside out of their pants saying, ‘Miss, please can you help me?’”
Asked about the couple’s retirement plans, Moore sounds genuinely perplexed. “I guess we’ll just stay together till one of us pops off or till one or other of us has to take care of the one that loses the plot.”