If the population is ageing why am I always the oldest wherever I work?

[Antheanna]

I was born in 1970 by the way. So I'm 47. Fit, healthy, well presented but my age was an obstacle an issue finding work. But however, glossing over the hunt that it took to get the job I'm in now, even though their recruitment process uses testing and so doesn't allow for bias in favour of the young purely on the grounds that they're young, YET AGAIN I'm one of the oldest. Out of about 80 people on my floor I am probably in the oldest 8 or 9. Where are all the old people? Why is there a pension crisis? Seems to me that wherever I wherever I work I'm one of the oldest now if not the oldest. All this talk of working til 70, if there was anybody over 55 in my office I'd do a double take.

I’m the only woman though - now that is noticeable.

What kind of job are you in? And where in the country do you live?

I think there's a lot of variation between different industries and different locations.

I work in a company of 20. Three of us are in our 50s and one in her 60s. The rest range from early 20s to mid-40s. A reasonably good distribution I think

there's huge variation between sectors.
I'm 39, and the youngest in my department, which I find odd but not atypical for the sector. I am in a job that a good proportion of people go into as a second career though.

Back office retail here
We have a very strange age range, either 55-65 or below 30 across the company

Trills, it's like an aspect of HR for larger organisations outsourced, kind of. Would rather not elaborate more.

I'm off today but it makes me wonder what it would be like to hang on til 67. There is nobody that old. Where are they all! Is there invisible pressure to disappear?!

The teacher upthread who said they try and get rid of you in your 50s, what is said / done ?? I do not disbelieve it at all though! All my children's teachers are younger than I am.

If its HR-ish then its female dominated so you’ll see a lot of drop offs when people leave on maternity. Not many return (if they can possibly help it). They’ll work from home or set up a consultancy or agency if its recruitment or a beureaux if its payroll. Most people over 50 tend to go self employed due to recruiter bias. You tend to see older people in local authorities & the NHS in my experience.

I work in professional services for a London university. In my team the age range is mid-30s to 60 and across the university as a whole it ranges from mid-20s to 70+ (academics). I'm mid-40s and like to think that working around students helps to keep me young!

At just turned 49 I'm actually one of the younger ones where I work, major demographic issue, I'd say two thirds older, one third younger. And not by much.

Could it be your role is maybe dominated by younger people becayse that's who go for it? In my company it's predominantly Male, that's because it's a historically male dominated industry.

Theres a good spread in age of people where I work -people certainly work into their late 60's.

Depends where you work I guess. I'm a research scientist in academia and if you don't count undergrads/masters/PhD students I am one of the young'uns. University professors never retire....