From the blog: With economists virtually unanimous that extending working lives is essential if the UK is to tackle its demographic time-bomb, politicians have been working to remove barriers to later-life employment.
Employers should embrace and value their older workers, many of whom often hold more experience and knowledge than their younger counterparts, and they should ensure they get access to the same benefits, or benefits of the same cash value at the very least.
Policymakers, meanwhile, should be doing more to make older workers feel they are treated in exactly the same way as everyone else in the workplace.
The phrase ‘age discrimination’ has been useful in summing up the prejudices that have seen older workers squeezed out of the workforce sooner than they would have liked.
The phasing-out of the default retirement age of 65 in 2011 was a key moment for older workers, meaning capability, not a number on a birth certificate, has become the measure for determining whether an individual should be allowed to carry on earning.
Abolishing the default retirement age was a positive step, but policymakers should not relent in squeezing ageism out of the UK workplace – because it will encourage longer working lives, but also because it is right to do so.
One of the key elements of the demographic time-bomb is retirement funding – with life expectancy so much greater today than it was in previous decades, funding a retirement stretching into three decades or more is proving increasingly challenging.
So it is ironic, to say the least, that pension policy should perpetuate ageism.
Older workers not auto-enrolled
Why should auto-enrolment legislation preclude workers over state pension age from auto-enrolment? Surely it is unfair to pay a worker aged 70 less than one aged 65.
The group life insurance industry has an exemption from the age discrimination legislation, entitling employers to exclude workers over age 65 from group risk and PMI.
It was understandable that such an exemption be needed – insuring a worker in their 90s would be prohibitively expensive. Yet the reality is we have seen the industry adapt pretty quickly; it is the exception, not the rule, for insurers not to extend cover to age 70.
For workers over age 70, the principle of maintaining equality across the workforce can be achieved by replacing insured benefits with other benefits of an equivalent cash value.
But in the world of defined contribution pensions, there is no excuse for excluding workers from auto-enrolment just because they are above state pension age.
Sandra Kemish is director, client services at consultancy Cartwright Group
