The New Old Age - Caring and Coping
December 22, 2010, 1:10 pm
Toil and Trouble
By PAULA SPAN

When economists and policy types and members of Congress talk about older Americans working past normal retirement age, an increasing theme of late, we tend to think they mean a few years beyond age 65, right? Working until ages 68 or 69, that is — maybe even 70, though that might be pushing it.
Congress voted in 1936 to provide Social Security assistance to Americans beginning at age 65. Posters like this one helped spread the word.

We know that the work force is graying, but except for outliers, your Willie Nelsons or Robert Duvalls, most of us don’t picture people staying on the job when they’re pushing 80. In fact, as readers were quick to comment when Sherisse Pham recently wrote here about her 73-year-old father, a supermarket greeter, we see age discrimination as a potent barrier, even as we appreciate the continuing engagement that employment might bring.

Recently, while mulling this issue (count me among those who hope to keep working), I was intrigued to hear from the ace data-crunchers at AARP that in the past 20 years the oldest group of workers, the 75-plus work force, has increased enormously. Seventy-five! And not only because there are simply more people that age around, but also because a higher percentage of them are participating in the labor force.

“There are some pretty striking changes going on,” said John Rother, AARP executive vice president for policy.

I’ll say. Sifting through the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, AARP analysts found that the number of workers ages 75 and older (meaning they’re employed or seeking employment) has grown to about 1.3 million in 2009, from just under half a million in 1989. That’s still a small sliver of the population over age 75, just 7.3 percent, but a big jump from the 1989 labor force participation rate of 4.3 percent.

We know that a growing proportion of this work force, almost 44 percent, are women. And a just-released Census Bureau report adds this surprising fact: of workers ages 75 to 84, more than 42 percent hold full-time jobs.

Moreover, hundreds of thousands of people over age 75 want to work and can’t; their unemployment rate has shot up to 5.7 percent. But the year-to-year federal figures show that to be largely a product of the last two recessionary years; more typically, it hovers around 3 percent.

All of which points to more people working more years.

I know some readers who will lament this as evidence of a fraying safety net that robs elders of the golden leisure years they were promised. It’s true, Mr. Rother agreed, that sheer financial need is a potent motive. “People who have lost money in their 401(k)’s or equity in their homes have to work,” he said.

But because the growth in the 75-plus work force predates the financial meltdown and continued through the boom years, staving off poverty clearly isn’t the only motive. “People have worked all their lives, find meaning in it, are still quite skilled and want to continue,” Mr. Rother said.

Hence the recent comment from Barry, a reader from Parker, Colo., who decided he needed a part-time job after retirement: “When I thought my dogs and I were having deep, meaningful conversations, I knew it was time to get out of the house. And I needed the money.”

Sure, he may have found it hard to land a gig. Age discrimination complaints to the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission have also soared in the last two years, to the highest number since 1992.

Still, think of the multitudinous boomers who will start turning 65 in January. They’re healthier and better educated than the current 75-plus work force, and more apt to have held white-collar jobs that don’t exact such a harsh physical toll. Boomer women are more likely than their mothers to have worked outside the home. Once this feeble economy starts generating more jobs, even the more senior seniors will want a growing slice of them.

“This phenomenon is going to build,” Mr. Rother predicted. “This is just the first wave.” All kinds of consequences — economic, political, social, familial — will ensue.

So to that Wisconsin reader who grumped, “Too many older people (professors, Morley Safer, etc.) continue to work for selfish reasons, thereby taking jobs from the young and unemployed” — I’m afraid you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. And lay off Morley Safer.

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

    * Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
    * Privacy Policy
    * NYTimes.com 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018