Hooray! Harriet Harman has announced that moves to end “default” retirement at 65 are being brought forward, with older workers also getting the right to request flexible retirement/working options (not that this means they will automatically get them). No doubt there are many dark and devious economic and political forces at work behind this but no matter – the outcome is just as welcome.
Two interesting points stood out from Ms Harman’s speech: the first referring to the role of older women, many of whom are just getting into their prime in their working life – having taken time off work when their children were young. This is a point which is largely ignored in talking about later life working where male work patterns are generally used as the standard. Employers and policy bodies need to pay much more attention to gender differences in work attitudes and abilities in later life in order to avoid erroneous assumptions about what older workers want, need, and are able and prepared to do.
The second point was Ms Harman’s use of the term the “wellderly” to describe older people who are well and able to work (or perhaps well able to work…). By doing so she has shot herself in the foot and demonstrated she has completely missed the point – which is that older working people are NOT elderly. Such a term is perpetuating ageist stereotyping and is profoundly unhelpful for older people themselves and their employers.
Let’s hope this “wellderly” is relegated to the government’s “thought it was a good idea at the time but let’s pretend it never happened” pile, immediately.
