Solving the 'pension crisis' according to ILC-UK

Older adults as a proportion of the population is growing in most western countries. And this proportion will continue to grow over the coming decades.

To address this, governments plan to raise the age at which people can begin claiming their state pension but, as a 2013 report by the International Longevity Centre UK shows, this measure is unlikely to have the required impact.

Authored by Craig Berry and Kate Joplin and edited by David Sinclair and Jessica Watson, Extending working lives: a provocation points out that the state pension age is by no means a good proxy for the age of retirement. Many people stop working before the age at which they may claim their state pension. A 2013 ONS survey found that 87.1% of men and 93.4% of women were not working at the age of 65 and above. So the real challenge is how to extend people's working lives.

ILC-UK point out a number of barriers to this including disincentives in the welfare system, persistent age discrimination in the workplace and declining health and wellbeing in later life.

Their report also highlights that the rate of older adults engaging in work-related training is considerably lower than for younger members of the workforce. This seems to be due to a lack of public funding for initiatives that provide training opportunities as well as negative attitudes to training in the older adult community itself. The report acknowledges the double opportunity to improve skills in the older adult population and to make more of existing skills to benefit employers.

Another barrier to extending working lives is that retirement is seen as a sort of 'sacred' right. Sarah Harper of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing has conducted interesting work on this subject, finding that many people see retirement as a reward for a lifetime of 'toil'. In an article in The New Old Age, Professor Harper also notes that older adults engage in substantial amounts of voluntary work which may not be factored into calculations of productivity.

The ILC-UK report also notes the UK workplace's surprising lack of provision of interesting jobs for older adults to perform. In their 2006 paper, Johannes Siegrist and colleagues surveyed around 7,000 older employees spread across ten European countries and found high rates of poor quality work which was strongly linked to an intention to pursue early retirement. Siegrist et al recommend that older employees are granted increased control at work and higher rewards in order to tackle this problem.

To stimulate change, certain areas for development are noted:

• We need to generate a thriving market for innovation by overcoming a number of barriers, notably the absence of training and skill development in older adults.

• We must facilitate a 'user led' approach whereby older adults themselves are empowered to innovate and lead the debate.

• Government must provide leadership, driving behavioural change and raising awareness; particularly around health.

• We need to improve our understanding of the attitudes of older and younger adults towards work and retirement and, in so doing, adopt a 'life course' approach.

In conclusion, the report suggests that:

1. We must all act to change our attitudes to retirement and working longer

2. Employers must take the initiative in leading innovation

3. Older workers' attitudes and aspirations must shape the agenda

4. A strategic approach to employment in later life

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