The proportion of U.S. adults who are “in the labor force”–that is, who either have jobs or are unemployed and looking for a job–has been falling for a decade, as I explored in an April 26, 2012, post on “Falling Labor Force Participation.” But for one demographic group, the elderly, labor force participation is rising substantially.
He cites a Census Bureau Study. This is a two-decade trend, and I think that the most plausible explanation is better health for those in the 65-75 age bracket.
While I agree that better health is an important and probably primary factor driving increased labor force participation among the elderly, I would posit an additional factor that is playing some role: the increased share of jobs in the labor force that are “elder-friendly.” The fewer jobs there are in factories and the more there are at desks, the more likely it is that an older person will be able to continue working, if they so choose. These are probably also reinforcing of each other – more desk jobs means more healthy retirement-age folks.
Maybe a minor factor, but could a shortage of retiremet savings also be a motivation here?
Changing expectations of what retirement should include require more disposable income, particularly for workers in mid to upper income brackets. It takes one level of income to go from working at a blue collor job with a 2 week vacation at the beach to full time retirement at home with summers at the beach. It takes another level of income to go from a white collor job with 2-3 trips a year of which one is foriegn to retirement in a gated, adults only community and spending 4-6 months a year travelling.