The share of people aged 65 or more years who are employed has almost doubled in the past 35 years, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center.
Pew reached the finding using data from the Census Bureau Current Population Survey and the Federal Reserve 2022 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking. It found that almost 20% of Americans aged 65 or more were in the workforce in 2023, and those employees are working more hours and earning more money than ever before.
More than 60% of those older workers are working full time; in 1987, the percentage was less than half. They also are more likely to be receiving employee benefits such as health insurance or pension plans, and 44% of the older workers have a bachelor’s degree or higher, which is only 1 percentage point lower than the proportion of degree-holding workers aged 25 to 64.
Older adults’ health likely makes it possible for them to work longer, the authors said. Across the past 15 years, older adults today generally are healthier and less likely to have a disability, making it easier to “extend their working lives,” according to Pew. Also, many more jobs are “age-friendly” now compared with decades past, promoting safer, more flexible work environments, the authors noted.
Beyond those reasons, however, government policy and shifting employer expectations have kept many individuals working into what has been traditionally considered retirement age. Defined contribution plans such as 401(k)s, which are increasingly common, do less to encourage early retirement compared with benefit plans such as pensions. And in 1983, the federal government began increasing the age at which workers could collect their full Social Security benefits, so many older adults have remained working longer, according to the report. For instance, whereas everyone formerly could collect full benefits at age 65, now, those born from 1943 to 1954 had to wait until they were 66, those born from 1955 to 1959 must wait until they are 66 and a varying amount of months depending on birth year, and those born in 1960 or later must wait until they are 67.
Within healthcare, the average age of a registered nurse is 43 years, slightly higher than the age in all other occupations, which is 42 years, according to a recent study by the ADP Research Institute. Still, as burnout, stress and other on-the-job factors push many nurses towards retirement, the average tenure within the field has declined in recent years.
This article originally appeared on McKnights Home Care
