Why fuss about retiring later? Work’s good for us

Too bad, 54-year-olds. You may be retiring that bit later than you thought. The state pension age was going to go up from 66 to 67 in 2024 and to 68 by 2046, but it turns out that a review that the Treasury is terrifically keen on would like that brought forward, perhaps to 2035. The Chancellor could break the news in the March budget.

But not if the Work and Pensions Secretary has his way; Mel Stride thinks that increases in longevity haven’t happened as planned since Covid. And it’s life expectancy that’s the crucial factor here: when the pension age was originally set at 65 for men, the poor things couldn’t expect to last much past 70.

Just as well this isn’t France. A few days ago, about a million people took to the streets to complain that President Macron was raising the retirement age to… 64. Naturally public sector workers were especially prominent: the self-employed rather less so. But really, what are we complaining about? There is, as we all now know, a chronic labour shortage which neither robots nor AI can address. And if young people can’t be persuaded to work longer and harder, why on earth should we be subsiding perfectly healthy people in their 50s and 60s to loaf around? Personally, I’d pay pensions at 70.

The Office for National Statistics has reported that “adults aged over 50 years in the labour market continue to drive the increase in inactivity”. Or possibly, people have got into bad habits of not working during the pandemic. Funnily enough it found that those with debt or mortgages were keen to return to work.

Our life expectancy and health does vary: if you live in Kensington and Chelsea, you’re practically Methusalahs by comparison with Glaswegians. But by and large we’re all living longer. The life expectancy of a woman is now 83 years, an increase of 21 years since the late Queen was crowned. Most of us are still fit until our 70s, though a report today suggests that those with fat tummies are more likely to be frail in old age than the fit, which is bad news for me.

Why should we expect to be supported in our health by a dwindling cohort of the young? What are we expecting from retirement anyway? That nice French nun, Sr Andre, who died at 118 last week observed that “work gave me life”, and she carried on until she was 100.

That’s the way to go.