Should pensioners take a wage forever?

New research claims that when it comes to work, 70 is the new 50. Great if you're fit to draw a wage into retirement, but should pensioners take a wage forever?

"Life is a rollercoaster baby" but are people really fit enough to draw a wage well into their 70s?

New research by the International Monetary Fund has argued that people in developed countries should work into their 70s. However, research we helped launch last year with the Institute for Public Policy Research (North) found that, far from living longer, fitter lives, healthy life expectancy in the UK starts to end by the time we hit 60-years-old. 

In some regions of the UK - the north east, midlands and elsewhere for example - healthy life expectancy has even gone into reverse.

So far from living longer healthy lives, many are set to live shorter healthy lives today, than their parents. On current trends, northerners face more than 50 years of sicker, shorter, healthy lives, compared to people in the south.

But should pensioners take a wage forever?

These things are always a matter of choice, but the jury is out on whether pensioners should be drawing a wage well into retirement. And in the wake of a historically unprecedented pandemic that continues to hit people over 50 particularly hard, perhaps we need to be solving the reasons why healthy life expectancy has collapsed, not pushing older people into more and more work. For more on pay and employment in your area, check out our new product WageSight.