Past It?

It used to be that we all worried about retiring. Stern high school teachers would tell us to start saving now, while TV commercials advertising pension savings funds featured anxious seniors wringing their hands and pondering their futures.

But all that has changed. These days, by law, most of us don't have to retire. Mandatory retirement has been banned in Australia and New Zealand. And in the United States, since the 1980s, amendments made to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act have gradually removed the retirement age limit for most employees. And most provinces in Canada have either banned mandatory retirement or are on the way to doing so.

The Great Debate

Despite its prohibition in these countries, the issue remains contentious and debates about mandatory retirement tend to be polarized.

The more common arguments for mandatory retirement assert that it:

Those against mandatory retirement, however, usually counter that:

Pensions obviously play a large role in these debates. Supporters of mandatory retirement argue that by allowing people to work past the age of 65 (or 70), governments will no longer feel that it is necessary to provide adequate old age pension plans for retirees. (Not that government pensions are enough for anyone to live on without other income anyway.) Opponents argue that – quite the contrary – with more people working, there will be more tax money in the government coffers to spend on old age pensions.

A related argument pertains to direct and indirect healthcare costs. First, supporters of mandatory retirement sometimes argue that employers who provide healthcare insurance (e.g., drug plans, vision plans) will find it is much more expensive to maintain coverage for older workers than for younger workers. Similarly, there are concerns about productivity loss, which also means financial loss, due to older workers having to take more time off to recover from illness than younger workers.

Economists also point to the traditional method of determining salaries to argue for mandatory retirement. In this method, companies typically pay younger, newer, less experienced staff less for their work, and increase salaries as employees age, and gain seniority and experience. (This arrangement supposedly guarantees that employees will work diligently throughout their careers, otherwise risk losing the "deferred compensation," i.e., the higher salary that results from being a loyal, longtime employee.) Despite the claim by opponents of mandatory retirement that the workers staying on the job are most productive, these economists suggest that the older employees are the ones that are less productive. As a result, removing mandatory retirement rules, and therefore allowing employees to work indefinitely, means that employees will be paid the most when they do the least. Of course, considering the frequency with which people change jobs nowadays, the image of the unproductive, costly, animated corpse sitting at a desk is probably not realistic (except, perhaps, on corporate boards of directors, upper houses of government, and supreme courts).

Also, some employers are concerned that if they hire an older person (usually at a higher pay rate due to experience) and the person becomes a liability rather than an asset, they'll be unable to get rid of them without being charged with age discrimination. After all, if mandatory retirement is in place, and a company hires someone at age 55, and they start to "deteriorate," it won't be as big an issue, because the company knows that they will be gone at age 65.

The Human Factor

Of course, there's an aspect to the issue of mandatory retirement that doesn't get much play in the debates that focus chiefly on money, and that's the question of why people choose to work longer.

People work for a variety of reasons, not just out of self-interest or the desire for a paycheck. Work provides people with a sense of fulfillment and status in the community. It provides them with a means to measure their accomplishments against others'. And it provides people with a social life beyond the boundaries of their circle of friends or family. As a result, for many, ending working life can be incredibly difficult.

What About My Surgeon?

Removing the upper age limit for mandatory retirement shifts the responsibility of "knowing when to quit" from the government onto the individual. And it does so at a time when people are likely not in the best position to judge their own abilities.

All of the countries that currently ban mandatory retirement make exceptions for law enforcement officers and military personnel, and for occupations that required a high level of technical skill or mental awareness, such as airline pilots. But no exceptions are made for healthcare professionals, including surgeons. Clearly, surgeons have their lives in our hands as much as police officers, military personnel, and pilots. In the case of all four, we definitely want steady hands and steady minds.

When asked, most surgeons would prefer a peer review system to determine their competency, rather than an upper age limit for practicing. And maybe that's the best way to handle the issue of retirement for everyone: Like in a court of law, a jury of our peers will decide whether the quality and quantity of our work merits our sticking around, or whether we should be riding off into the sunset.

Discuss This Article

Have something you'd like to say? Tell us what you think! Read and post comments for this article.

Find a Job

Choose your career:

MedHunters is the world's biggest healthcare job board. Our job directory has 16,933 jobs with 2,393 hospitals and other direct employers.

We want you to find your next job on MedHunters. Need Help? Call us at 1-888-884-8242, email us at info@medhunters.com or sign up now.