Government budgets are being strained by longer retirements and a low worker-to-retiree ratio. It's inevitable that retirement age will increase. But how do we make the change more palatable?
Paul’s article, Can I trade a higher retirement age for a four-day workweek? Is excellent!
“Our age of retirement, 65, is currently five years lower than where it stood when Ottawa launched Old Age Security (OAS) in 1952, even though average life expectancy has increased 14 yearsover the same period. It’s time to strengthen our pension system by considering a potential win-win tradeoff: slightly longer work lives for shorter workweeks.” Life expectancy having increased 14 years is a key point that can’t be stressed enough. Our relatively rich old folks have so many means to live longer and longer to extend their lives…using more and more resources. Perspective: When my Dad was in the hospital at age 78 dieing of cancer and getting relatively little time and attention-resources…the doctors and nurses paid so much attention to the 99 year old in the bed next to my Dad. Disturbing my Dad’s peace in his last days. They were all going out of their way to see that he reached 100 the next month…meanwhile my Dad died relatively ignored.
Quality of life-quality of living- quality of working conditions over extending length of life at any cost.
A 4 day working week would increase the quality of working life, making working more years more pleasurable.
Hi Glen, thanks for the kind feedback on the article. Your emphasis on the need to adapt to rising life expectancy is well taken. I also find your emphasis interesting, because in some of our email correspondence you self-identify as a "retired senior." When I reflect on the opposition to former PM Harper's plan to raise the age of retirement, ultimately one influential group that led the critique was the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP). We definitely want CARP defending public policy that matters later in our lives. We would also be well served by CARP if its members can offer their best thinking about how best to adapt to significant demographic changes -- like much longer life expectancy -- by comparison with when we first designed pension policy. Since I think an increase to the age of retirement is inevitable, I wonder if there is new opportunity for CARP to push past its initial resistance so that it could offer insights to guide its implementation. Cheers, P
Paul’s article, Can I trade a higher retirement age for a four-day workweek? Is excellent!
“Our age of retirement, 65, is currently five years lower than where it stood when Ottawa launched Old Age Security (OAS) in 1952, even though average life expectancy has increased 14 yearsover the same period. It’s time to strengthen our pension system by considering a potential win-win tradeoff: slightly longer work lives for shorter workweeks.” Life expectancy having increased 14 years is a key point that can’t be stressed enough. Our relatively rich old folks have so many means to live longer and longer to extend their lives…using more and more resources. Perspective: When my Dad was in the hospital at age 78 dieing of cancer and getting relatively little time and attention-resources…the doctors and nurses paid so much attention to the 99 year old in the bed next to my Dad. Disturbing my Dad’s peace in his last days. They were all going out of their way to see that he reached 100 the next month…meanwhile my Dad died relatively ignored.
Quality of life-quality of living- quality of working conditions over extending length of life at any cost.
A 4 day working week would increase the quality of working life, making working more years more pleasurable.
Doctors do it, many do it and enjoy it!
Glen Brown
Hi Glen, thanks for the kind feedback on the article. Your emphasis on the need to adapt to rising life expectancy is well taken. I also find your emphasis interesting, because in some of our email correspondence you self-identify as a "retired senior." When I reflect on the opposition to former PM Harper's plan to raise the age of retirement, ultimately one influential group that led the critique was the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP). We definitely want CARP defending public policy that matters later in our lives. We would also be well served by CARP if its members can offer their best thinking about how best to adapt to significant demographic changes -- like much longer life expectancy -- by comparison with when we first designed pension policy. Since I think an increase to the age of retirement is inevitable, I wonder if there is new opportunity for CARP to push past its initial resistance so that it could offer insights to guide its implementation. Cheers, P