Redesigning Work by Graham Lowe

Author:Graham Lowe
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4426-6063-2
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2016-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

Redefining Retirement

Baby boomers already are redefining retirement. Mandatory retirement is a relic of the past; most Canadian jurisdictions have eliminated this barrier to older worker employment.15 But will 70 become the new 60?

We are moving in this direction, albeit very slowly. Over a 10-year period, from 2004 to 2014, the median male retirement age increased from 61.8 to 64.1 years.16 Among females, the median retirement age has also started to move up, from 60.8 to 62.3 over the same period. The financial turmoil of the recession added momentum to these trends.

However, these retirement ages only measure individuals who have exited the workforce. In recent years, there are signs of greater diversity in work-retirement transitions. Retirement no longer can be defined as a permanent exit from paid work. So just looking at changes in the median retirement age won’t tell us how retirement behaviour is changing. Indeed, more people are retiring and then returning to the workforce or delaying retirement altogether. Statistics Canada’s survey of older workers, conducted before the Great Recession, confirmed the emergence of these new work-retirement patterns.17

Until now, we’ve lacked reliable national data showing how the Great Recession affected retirement decisions and behaviour. To fill this gap, the Rethinking Work surveys offer a pre- and post-recession comparison of just how much Canadians’ retirement plans are changing. And the survey findings leave little doubt that the Great Recession has accelerated the trend to delaying retirement.

Figure 5.3. Retirement plans by age group

Employed Canadians, Rethinking Work 2012.

Age group differences in both graphs are statistically significant (p < 0.001).

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