Canadians holding off on retirement

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tavia grant
Globe and Mail Update
Published Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011 9:00AM EDT
Last updated Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011 9:18AM EDT

Canadians are delaying their retirement and staying on the job for longer, a trend that had profound implications for the country’s current and future work force.

A 50-year-old worker in 2008 stayed in the labour force three and a half years longer than in the mid-1990s, according to a Statistics Canada indicator that tracks peoples’ retirement behaviour.

Its findings, which use data from the labour force survey, are consistent with an increase in the employment rate of older Canadians that began at the same time.

All told, an employed 50-year-old in 2008 could expect another 16 years at work – 3.5 years longer than workers of the same age in the mid-1990s, who could expect to work 12.5 more years. The 3.5-year increase was the same for both men and women.

It’s a shift from prior decades. The 1980s and early 1990s were marked by a trend towards early retirement (remember “Freedom 55?”) amid high public-sector deficits and downsizing in the private sector, the paper said.

“However, since the mid-1990s, the tide appears to have turned.”

The employment rate among workers aged 55 and older has climbed from a low of 22 per cent in 1996 to 34 per cent in 2010. That 2010 rate was even higher than in 1976, when it was 30.2 per cent.