State retirement age is too old for working class people

[Spiceup]

An observation from some things I've seen lately. I'll explain.

I work in a public sector organisation that employees highly qualified and very well paid professionals alongside support staff on not much more than minimum wage and those in between.

Part of my role is managing sickness absence. What I am seeing lately is that the professional types, despite doing what are generally accepted to be stressful jobs, on the whole, stay well until well into their sixties, although many do retire earlier simply because they have the kind of pensions that make that possible.

People in the more lowly jobs are often genuinely finished by their mid-late 50s. Just worn out and suffering from multiple health problems. Perhaps because of their lifestyles or maybe from just having harder lives (not necessarily harder work lives, but getting by is just generally harder for them). To have to go on to 67 is just absurd and very few do, with ill health retirement common (so the state is paying anyway).

I can't begin to imagine how similar people manage in genuinely physical jobs, in construction for example.

Is it more common for working class people in their 50s to be worn out, or perhaps more comfortably off professionals retire before they get to that point so I don't see it?

I really feel for people who have worked hard in a low-paid job and have to carry on working while their health declines.

In complete contrast, you have the FIRE generation, who earn a fuck tonne and are able to save huge amounts of cash or who set up businesses which they can step back from, and then retire at 40!

DH has a lot of family in Glasgow. I’d say a lot of them haven’t lived long since they retired and the retirement itself has been fairly miserable because of poor health.

My DH is almost 60. He works 4 * 12 hour night shifts in a row, partly outside in all weather and on his feet most of the time. It is just hitting him that he is now getting very tired and his legs are starting to feel weak. I cannot see him being able to do this for more than another couple of years.

Yes jobs in the low skilled- sorry, key, sectors are very physically, mentally and emotionally demanding and take their toll on the health of workers regardless of their general lifestyle.

With Tax credits there was an obligation for certain groups to only work 16 hours. One of those groups was those who reached 60. Universal credit doesn't have this so you are expected to work 35 hours until your state retirement age, currently 66, soon to be 67.

67 is way too old the body slows down & the responsibility of elderly parents / care picks up.
If the nearly retired cant do the supporting roles then the social care bill is going to increase massively.

Business dont want to carry the older people who cant perform in the same way as younger people.
State pension needs to he a living pension & needs to start at a sensible age.

Few people do the same job for life. They mostly move out of more labour-intensive occupations into management or planning roles as they age. eg., Very few people are HCAs (only) for 45 years without moving into less physical roles in same industry or completely different jobs. Even if they stay in care industry, they become activities coordinators, managers, kitchen staff, etc. Drop from FT to PT. Care work is interesting because it's a mosaic career and the people in it might work a lot in schools, with other classes of vulnerable people, etc. They move into less physical activity roles if /when they need to.

American website but the patterns are similar in UK. Not that many people are in manual labour jobs anyway at age 25 (*modern workforce is mostly services economy in the high income countries) and of those that are in high physical activity jobs, few will still be doing the same role at age 55 -- they get promoted to management roles or change jobs within the general industry, else move to other industries or service roles, etc.

@anniegun Blackpool has the lowest life expectancy in the UK and a check on the variations within it shows a life expectancy of 67.5yrs in the most deprived part.
Healthy life expectancy (i.e the part of life without illness or diability to be even lower)
This is a really clear summary

I think it's shocking the way a lot of roles in the NHS rely on 12 hour shifts. These don't allow adequate recovery time between shifts.

I know they are offered partly because they are popular with some workers because of the longer time off between blocks of shifts, but long term they aren't good for health and older workers in particular are likely to start to struggle with them. So the effect is to lose older workers once they can't manage any more.

The aversge HEALTHY LUFE expectancy of a man in Glasgow is 54. That’s not the same as the age you die at but it does mean on average men in Glasgow are seriously unhealthy 13 years before retirement age.

Calton life expectancy was 54 for men recently though as someone pointed out.

You can gain a year in life for every mile you move west across the city.

It’s a massive issue.

lljkk I don’t think there is career progression and advancement now as there was in the past. For instance, many sectors do not value experience and recruit fast track graduates over people who have been a few years in the job. Also unless you have a degree you will not be promoted. People who are domestic and manual workers tend to stay in that role.

I'm not sure there is any way of dealing with this other than the things we would all like to see like improved social mobility and equality. You can't have different retirement ages for different jobs or pay grades as it would be impossible to administer fairly

@lljkk

Few people do the same job for life. They mostly move out of more labour-intensive occupations into management or planning roles as they age. eg., Very few people are HCAs (only) for 45 years without moving into less physical roles in same industry or completely different jobs. Even if they stay in care industry, they become activities coordinators, managers, kitchen staff, etc. Drop from FT to PT. Care work is interesting because it's a mosaic career and the people in it might work a lot in schools, with other classes of vulnerable people, etc. They move into less physical activity roles if /when they need to.

American website but the patterns are similar in UK. Not that many people are in manual labour jobs anyway at age 25 (*modern workforce is mostly services economy in the high income countries) and of those that are in high physical activity jobs, few will still be doing the same role at age 55 -- they get promoted to management roles or change jobs within the general industry, else move to other industries or service roles, etc.

This is not my experience. I'm currently managing the cases of six low paid workers in their 50s and in poor health.

Actually, 4/6 are people (women) who did have "better" jobs when they were younger but family circumstances led to them taking lower laid jobs in the middle of their working life and their careers never recovered.

I'm not talking about particularly physical jobs, but lower paid people.

@talkingdeadscot

With Tax credits there was an obligation for certain groups to only work 16 hours. One of those groups was those who reached 60. Universal credit doesn't have this so you are expected to work 35 hours until your state retirement age, currently 66, soon to be 67.

I think that was unfair on everyone else who was working full hours

I’d also say this is likely a logical conclusion, low paid manual Labour is more physically intensive often than higher paid skilled roles which are more cerebral than physical, so I would expect to see more issues with the lower paid.

But there is no stereotype, I have a friend who works on the deli counter on tescos, she loves it, is mid sixties and will go on for years yet, where as some of her more senior colleagues mentally will be unable to hack it and need to retire,

I was under the impression that the expectation of retirement being some great extended holiday was a relatively recent phenomenon.

Wasn't it originally about people reaching the end of their ability to keep working? Changing the age re-aligns it with that purpose.

Retirement wasn't intended as a decades-long jolly to reward people for working, which is what people now seem to feel entitled to have.

The problem with retirement is that as people are living significantly longer it is becoming unaffordable. When the pension was introduced men retired at 65 after working 50+ years, then died on average at 68. Now men retire at 67 after working 47 years and live to 82. So it used to be 17 years of work per year or retirement, it is now 3 years of work per year of retirement. Retirement is generally more expensive now with more medical treatment and nursing home costs.

I am in my late thirties, I do not think that state pensions will be around when I retire as anything close to the current system looks completely unsustainable as long as life expectancy continues to rise.

One of my team is 64, she’s exhausted, cannot pick up new systems/ struggles with anything digital and has been working for nearly 50 years. She has another 3 years to go. It’s incredibly hard for her.

I don't think it's right that we have a society built around working people into the ground and discarding everyone with disabilities or too frail to work as "worthless". All the toxic rhetoric about "hard working" people like that's our only value as human beings.

If we want to rebalance things, I don't think it is helpful to be arguing the extreme that people should be worked to the bone for thirty years and then get an extended holiday for the next thirty or forty years.

I would prefer it if we had healthier working practices - and a healthier culture around human value relative to how much someone works - so that people's health wasn't already in the dustbin by their 40s.

Dh works in the office of a factory - many of the shop floor have worked there 30yrs plus doing repetitive heavy lifting and they are mostly physically knackered by the time they get to 50/55 - worn out wrist/shoulder joints and knees. It is so unrealistic to expect them to carry on until 67 but what is the alternative? they are not going to retrain for an office job mid 50's. I don't know what the answer is though

I was lucky enough to able to retire at 60. I do not think I could have coped with my job any longer to be honest and I count myself lucky that I was able to do this.

However I have spent my time caring for a sick OH.

And this is something that needs to be taken into consideration - many women who will now have to work till they are 67 would have been carers for both spouses and ageing parents. If all these unpaid carers will now be out and work instead, who is going to do the caring?

I think the government has underestimated the role of women in the late 50s and early 60s who take a caring role. Now, we can argue whether it is right that women are having to do this, but the reality is that this is what they do; and there is going to be a big care gap that will need filling.

@ftw163532

I was under the impression that the expectation of retirement being some great extended holiday was a relatively recent phenomenon.

Wasn't it originally about people reaching the end of their ability to keep working? Changing the age re-aligns it with that purpose.

Retirement wasn't intended as a decades-long jolly to reward people for working, which is what people now seem to feel entitled to have.

But that's exactly my point. Lots of people simply aren't able to continue working into or past their late 50s, at least not in the same way as they did when younger

@ftw163532

I don't think it's right that we have a society built around working people into the ground and discarding everyone with disabilities or too frail to work as "worthless". All the toxic rhetoric about "hard working" people like that's our only value as human beings.

If we want to rebalance things, I don't think it is helpful to be arguing the extreme that people should be worked to the bone for thirty years and then get an extended holiday for the next thirty or forty years.

I would prefer it if we had healthier working practices - and a healthier culture around human value relative to how much someone works - so that people's health wasn't already in the dustbin by their 40s.

I don't think we have a culture built around working people into the ground, but those who are able are expected to provide for both themselves and those who cannot provide for themselves. I agree we should encourage people to live healthier lives. Economically we have already burdened our children's generation with huge debts, I don't think we can pile even more into them so we can all retire a bit earlier.

Is 67 retirement age ? I thought it was much older ? Im a social worker in justice services, can be stressful, involves a fair bit of travel and I’m sure you can imagine some pretty complex decisions. I love my job but as one of the younger ones at 34 I often joke I’ll die at my desk 🤣 I can’t see myself doing my job in 30 years time. Im fit and healthy but the busy element takes its toll, I’m exhausted in the preparation for annual leave. I don’t know how physically demanding jobs like construction employees do it.
I hear from my older colleagues it’s a fight to get out on pension earlier. You need a health problem to get out? An older male in our team was clearly unfit to do the job, and he made a point of making this clear in his work, eventually he died when fell down at the bus stop…
I must put the lottery on 🥴