The Opportunities For Self-fulfillment In Later Life Of American

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The American economy, whether in government or private industry, has pound retirement a convenient practice for managing the labor force On the positive side, widespread retirement has meant an expansion of leisure and opportunities for self-fulfillment in later life. On the negative side, the practice of retirement entails large costs, both in funding required for pension systems and in the loss of the accumulated skills and talents of older people.
Critics of retirement as it exists today have pointed to the rigidity of retirement practices: for example, the fact that retirement is typically an all or nothing proposition. Would it not be better to have some form of flexible or phased retirement, in which employees gradually reduce their work hours or take longer vacations'?' Such an approach might enable older workers to adjust better to retirement, while permitting employers to make gradual changes instead of coping with the abrupt departure of an employee. Retirement could lie radically redefined in the future.

Earlier criticism of mandatory retirement at a fixed age led to legal abolition of the practice, for ...
... the most part, in 1986. The same kind of criticism has been leveled at I he practice of age discrimination in employment. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act forbids older workers from being limited or treated in any way that would harm their employment possibilities.

Still, most observers admit that age discrimination in the workplace remains widespread. The negative stereotypes of older workers have caused employers to be reluctant to hire or train older people. Sometimes such discrimination against older workers is based on mistaken ideas, such as the false belief that older workers are less productive. In fact, empirical studies have not shown older workers to be less dependable in their job performance, nor are their absenteeism rates higher.

Interest in the potential productivity of older workers has stimulated tin- growth of industrial gerontology, a field concerned with recruitment, performance appraisal, retraining, and redesign of jobs to permit older workers to be more productive. Managing an older work force will clearly be a challenge for the future. There is also much
support for the idea of work life extension; that is, adaptations of retirement rules or employment practices to enable older people to become more productive. In favor of this idea is the fact that three-quarters of employed people over 65 are in white-collar occupations in service industries, which are less physically demanding than agriculture or manufacturing jobs.

As a result, it is sometimes argued, older people can remain in productive jobs now longer than in the past. in addition, some analysts point to declining numbers of young people entering the workforce, thus anticipating a labor shortage later in the 1990s. That development, if it occurred, might stimulate a need for older workers and a reversal of the trend toward early retirement.

There is also much
support for the idea of work life extension; that is, adaptations of retirement rules or employment practices to enable older people to become more productive. In favor of this idea is the fact that three-quarters of employed people over 65 are in white-collar occupations in service industries, which are less physically demanding than agriculture or manufacturing jobs.