Never too old

A recent report in the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, caught my eye. It was about “disciplined services staff” asking that their retirement age be raised from the current 55 to 60.

I was more intrigued by the term “disciplined services staff,” which turned out to mean the police, but as I read the report I remembered our own situation in the Philippines, where police and military personnel are also required to retire at 55.  I had actually met one of these forced retirees, who told me this was such a problem because many of them, at 55, still have children in school.

I thought I’d dig up more information on mandatory retirement ages in the Philippines and other countries, and examine the rationale behind the numbers.

When I looked at retirement ages across different countries, I found two patterns: Most developed countries have higher retirement ages, the lowest being 60 and many going up to 65 and beyond. The US Social Security System, for example, has a “full retirement age” of 65, meaning the age where you can retire and get full benefits from Social Security and Medicare. A number of European countries have retirement ages of 65 to 67.

With developing countries, the retirement ages tend to be lower. China and Vietnam, for example, have 60 as the retirement age for males and 55 for females. Actually, I could find data only for those two countries, which are both socialist, with a government pension system. I guess for most other developing countries, there is no mandatory retirement age because social security systems are not in place.

Healthier senior citizens

The Philippines does have such a system—the Social Security System for the private sector and the Government Service Insurance System for the public sector—and however low the benefits may be, they are still useful. The retirement age for the private sector is 60, and for government, 65.  There are variations, like 55 for the “disciplined staff” and for Supreme Court justices, 70.

The contrast between “disciplined staff” and Supreme Court justices shows how societies look at old age. For the soldiers, a premium is placed on physical fitness, and it’s presumed that after the age of 55, that physical fitness deteriorates. On the other hand, the late retirement age of Supreme Court justices reflects the idea that as someone grows older, he or she becomes wiser and therefore we have a Supreme Court of very wise men and women. (I’m clearing my throat now.)

Many countries are in fact ruled by gerontocracies, usually very old men. The Catholic Church has been noted for very old, and presumably very wise, popes who stay in power till they die. Pope Benedict shocked the world when he decided to resign, citing “age and declining health” at a relatively young age of 85.

What do the medical sciences have to say about fitness and old age?

Last year at a medical symposium, Dr. Joven Cuanang of St. Luke’s Medical Center mentioned that retirement ages are “artificially pegged” and that you can have elderly people still in their prime, physically and mentally. Cuanang should know, being a neurologist and, at age 72 (last year), still managing very well as the chief medical officer of St. Luke’s. It’s interesting that over at The Medical City, the chief executive officer is also a neurologist, also a septuagenarian, Dr. Alfredo Bengzon.

There’s a growing body of research studies showing that senior citizens today are healthier than their counterparts in the past, in large part because of advances in medicine and increased awareness about healthier diets and lifestyles.  Even until about 20 or 30 years ago, people in their 60s were perceived as “very old,” with all kinds of stereotypes of being frail, weak and slow to think.  Today, when you hear about someone dying in their 60s, we go, “Ay, ang bata (Oh, how young).”

Never too old

Over at the University of the Philippines, we’re in our registration week and I sense there are more elderly people enrolling. One of them, Victor Africa, came to me for advising. I found out that he had an AB, then an LlB (Bachelor of Laws) and an LlM (Master of Laws).  He went into private law practice, then retired. After retirement, he went back to school and got another master’s degree, this time in human movement science, and is now doing his PhD in Philippine studies.  He is 68 years old and said, sure, I could feature him as an example of “never too old for school.”  Last summer Esperanza Gatbonton, who is in her 70s, got her PhD, also in Philippine studies.

We hear more now about the elderly competing in sports (against other elderly athletes), or taking on a second (or third or fourth) career. So, why do societies still insist on mandatory retirement ages around the 60s?

The main reason is that societies have limited numbers of jobs and so if people continue working into old old age (versus young old age),  the young are deprived of work. In Spain, Greece and Italy, which are facing economic recession and high unemployment rates, there have been calls for people to retire earlier so their job items can be passed on.

Paradoxically, in European countries like Germany and France, the trend has been to raise the retirement age—a move opposed by many of the elderly who had looked forward to retiring and enjoying their pensions.  The problem, though, was that with so many elderly people, the governments in these countries were worried that they would run out of pension funds, so the solution was to keep people longer in the labor force.

In Japan, the move has also been to raise the retirement age—from 55 to 60 in 1998, and then, starting this year, up to 61, with further additions every three years until, by the year 2025, the retirement age will be 65.  The reason for this rising retirement rate in Japan is that with low birth rates, its labor force has dwindled. A similar trend is being seen in Singapore.

However, there has been criticism of Japan and Singapore, where the elderly are kept in the labor force but end up doing menial tasks like cleaning, or serving food. There have been proposals to put up more retraining programs for the elderly, to which they can contribute with their wisdom and experience with work and life.

Japan also has to face up to a cultural problem with keeping the elderly in the labor force.  With the heavy emphasis on age hierarchies, the elderly sometimes have problems when they become subordinates to much younger people.

In the Philippines, we find people generally wanting to retire later because they are still supporting children (or sometimes, even grandchildren). On the other hand, the tight job market means that they stay on in jobs that could be going to younger people. Overseas Filipinos seem to be the exception: They are only too willing to retire early from their jobs in North America or Europe, and to come home to enjoy their dollar or euro pensions.

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E-mail: mtan@inquirer.com.ph