Public health challenges of adding years to life and life to years.

This paper considers the extent to which the objective of “active ageing” is currently being met and obstacles to its realisation. It shows how most transitions from work to retirement are abrupt. Despite much advocacy by social gerontologists of the merits of a gradual withdrawal from working life, the incidence of transitions from full-time to part-time work, or from dependentto self-employment, is low. Measures designed to promote gradual retirement have largely failed. This is a consequence of employer resistance and employee reluctance. But it is also the consequence of competition from schemes offering full early retirement and of provisions in pension regulations that disadvantage partial retirees. Moreover, once people cease paid employment, their lives tend to be relatively passive. They do not take on new activities, such as voluntary work, nor do they engage in active leisure activities. The paper draws on data on recent trends from labour force surveys and time-use surveys – using both to track “quasi-cohorts” as they pass through the later stages of their working lives and into the initial stages of retirement. It also examines government policies in a variety of OECD countries that have been designed to promote more gradual retirement and assess the reasons why, to date, these have largely been unsuccessful. The paper concludes with proposals about how pensions policy (public and private) might be adapted to encourage longer, if more flexible, employment in older age. It points out how increasing demands for “elder care” are, by themselves, likely to put increasing pressure both on the need for older people to adapt their working practices, and for employers to accommodate them in this. Lastly, it indicates how other barriers to “active retirement” might be overcome. Introduction Twenty years ago, the term “active ageing” was largely the preserve of gerontologists and referred to post-retirement activities. For some, it reflected a concern with whether retirees engaged in social or cultural activities, and to what extent years after work were used in a socially productive fashion. For others, it reflected a concern with whether older people occupied themselves in ways that contributed to the maintenance of their physical and mental capabilities. More recently, the term has entered the parlance of economists. Here, it no longer reflects an interest in post-retirement activities but in the postponement of retirement and the substitution of unpaid with paid work. Perceived looming fiscal deficits consequent upon population ageing are seen to require not only changes in the generosity of public pension benefits (and a greater reliance on private pension benefits) but also a raising of the age of entitlement to these benefits and, so, a reduction in the length of time spent in retirement. “Active ageing” has come to imply “economically active ageing”. This paper seeks to summarise what actually happens to people as they pass from their early fifties to their late sixties. At the earlier of these ages, most men are in the labour market and the overwhelming majority of these are in paid work. At the later of these ages, most men are no longer economically active and very few of them are in paid work. The situation with respect to women is somewhat different. The proportion in their early fifties who are in work