People from the baby boomer generation are being encouraged to stay in the workforce for longer and delay retirement as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said governments needed to make more use of fit, older workers to balance public finances amid fiscal pressures caused by an ageing global population.
The financial agency declared that “the 70s are the new 50s”, and released data findings suggesting that a person aged 70 in 2022 had the same cognitive function as the average 53-year-old in 2000. Physical health had also significantly improved, the IMF found, as 70-year-olds displayed the same fitness as 56-year-olds did 25 years ago based on grip strength and lung functionality tests.
The IMF warned that governments burdened with historically high levels of public debt could not afford to let growing numbers of older workers exit the workforce at a time when they were still healthy and able to work. Instead, it argued, governments could encourage workers to delay their retirement, slash early retirement benefits and increase pension ages to rebalance the increasingly precarious ratio of workers and retirees.
We’d like to hear what people make of these findings and recommendations. Would you be willing and able to work until 70 or longer, or is that your plan anyway? How could you be personally affected by a push to keep older people in work for longer?
Are there factors beyond cognitive and physical health that could make staying in the workforce longer impossible for you? Do you have concerns?
