Reconstructing Retirement by Lain David

Author:Lain, David [Lain, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Economics, General, Social Science, Gerontology
ISBN: 9781447326199
Google: CHVJDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Policy Press
Published: 2018-01-24T03:32:02+00:00

Moving now on to the US, we see that around 60% of all workers age 65–74 in 2012 worked fewer hours than they did in 2002. The percentage of people working more hours was slightly higher than in England (around 20% versus 15%). A significant difference between the countries is therefore that around 20% of Americans worked the same number of hours as in 2002, compared with 5% in England. This is consistent with the preceding argument that there is a greater degree of inflexibility around working time in the US than in England. This is perhaps most evident when we note that 54.2% of Stayers in the US reduced their working time, compared with 75.9% of Stayers in England. On the other hand, the fact that over half of US Stayers reduced their working time suggests that people were probably more likely to remain with their employer beyond age 65 if they could reduce their working time.

These findings are interesting in suggesting that the feasibility of working past 65 for many individuals in both countries is likely to involve the ability to reduce working time. To get a better understanding of what these reductions mean in practice, Figure 4.7 shows mean working hours in 2002 and 2012 for workers aged 65–74. Once again, these figures only include people employed at both time points. If we take full-time work to be 35+ hours a week, we see that, overall, in both countries, people typically moved from full-time to part-time work. Mean working hours in 2002 were 41.3 per week in the US and 38.3 per week in England; when these individuals reached 65–74 in 2012, their hours had declined to 30.6 per week in the US and 24.8 per week in England. If we look at men, we see that those continuing to work past 65 in 2012 had worked relatively long hours in 2002 (45.9 per week in the US and 43.9 per week in England). This had fallen to relatively long part-time hours in the US in 2012 (33 per week), with shorter part-time work for men in England (24.8 per week). In the case of US women, working hours fell from relatively short full-time hours in 2002, 36.1 per week, to 27.9 per week in 2012. The situation of women in England was different because they were already in part-time jobs in 2002; this, in part, reflects the wider prevalence of part-time work among women in the UK more generally, as discussed earlier. Nevertheless, mean working hours fell considerably, from 30 per week in 2002 to 19.1 per week in 2012. In sum, the transition into employment for men and women past age 65 is not one of continuing in full-time work; instead, this transition typically involves reductions in working time for most individuals. This suggests that part-time work is a more plausible form of employment for many people beyond age 65, and yet constraints in the ability of older people to obtain part-time work are likely to reduce potential employment beyond this age.

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