Careers Insight: All hail the ageing workforce
It’s time to admit it… yep, I am getting old and rapidly heading towards adding to the ageing workforce statistics. And I hear many similarly ‘old’ friends in the industry cry ‘What’s new?’
Until I became self-employed just over two years ago, I was sure I would always be an employee and, unlike previous generations working in financial services who had a chance of reaching 65 and retiring, this would mean being made redundant in my mid- to late 50s with, hopefully, a decent-sized pension pot.
But I knew I would end up having to take either lower-paid or part-time roles to keep my mind active and lessen the impact on the aforementioned pension pot – while attempting to play a bit more bad golf, of course.
Compelling data
The statistics below show that not only are we an ageing workforce but many employers have not woken up to the challenges and benefits of this demographic shift:
Over-50s make up nearly a third of the UK workforce (Centre for Ageing Better, 2018), with 63 per cent of those aged 50 and over who are still in work reporting that they plan to retire later than they thought they would 10 years ago (Aviva, 2018)
During October-December 2018, 1.3 million individuals aged 65 and over, or 10.9 per cent of this cohort, were employed (ONS, 2019b)
The average age of retirement has increased over the past two decades. The average age for men is 65.1 while for women it is 63.9 (DWP, 2018)
By delaying retirement from 55 until 65, a man with an average wage could have £280,000 of extra income and a pension pot 55 per cent larger. By retiring at 63 instead of 55, a woman with an average wage, who had taken a 10-year career break, could have £180,000 of extra income and a pension pot 50 per cent larger (DWP, 2017)
Forty-four per cent of older workers feel unsupported by their employer when it comes to career ambitions (Aviva, 2018)
Median hourly pay for workers in their 50s is £13.55 and for those aged 60 and over it is £11.60, compared to £14.37 for workers in their 30s (ONS, 2018d)
Nearly one in four workers aged 50 and over is self-employed – twice the figure for younger people. Self-employment is also growing faster among even older workers, especially those in their mid-60s and above. More than half of people aged 70 and over who are still working are self-employed (Centre for Ageing Better 2017)
Since my self-employment epiphany, I truly feel that I may have found my ikigai, which in Japan translates as ‘a reason for being’ – the thing that gets you out of bed each morning.
I now feel that, instead of my age possibly becoming an impediment, my experience and my ability to be flexible – both in terms of the times when clients need me and in my home life – have given me purpose, much more so than the last few years of being a marketing director at a large FTSE 250 business.
It also means I can dictate how long I work for, health willing, and it is now known that working for longer may help you live longer.
This may not sound appealing to everyone (the working bit, not the living longer bit), but staying in the workplace for just one year more than another retired and healthy counterpart has been shown to be associated with an 11 per cent lower risk of death from all causes.
Turning Japanese
The lesson we can draw from the people of Japan is that we should do less when we are feeling overwhelmed but keep busy when we feel like doing nothing. Don’t overwork and push it too much, but don’t fritter away those hours either. The answer to longevity may rely on a balance between the two.