Working past retirement age is the only option for many who have not saved enough money to pay for their later years.
But as much as many want to work on, the nature of their jobs means they will either must retrain at a senior age or give up and soldier on with a meagre income.
New research in the USA puts the choice for those with little or no savings into perspective by listing the jobs seniors can expect to carry on with – and those that give up on them because of health or mental agility.
In the US, almost one in five over 65s still have a job – and the number is similar in most developed countries.
The general feeling is if you are a blue-collar worker, then you probably have no choice but to retire whatever your financial circumstances.
But the research by Boston College economist Geoffrey Sanzenbacher tells a different story.
White collar workers not sitting so pretty
“White-collar workers tend to believe they are immune to the factors that cause blue-collar workers to retire early,” he said.
“The notion that all white-collar workers can work longer, or that all blue-collar workers cannot, is too simplistic because aging impacts on the way you process information.”
The study revealed that as workers age, different skills have their own rate of decay.
For example, older workers are more knowledgeable than their younger colleagues, but they cannot learn new methods as a quick and have more trouble with physical activity.
They classified 954 occupations with the highest rating going to the job a 65-year-old is less capable of carrying out.
Unsurprisingly, construction workers ranked at the bottom of the scale, along with other workers relying on strength and health, such as fitness trainers.
But some surprises showed up.
Bodies and brains give out
Senior photographers and airline pilots fared badly, with bartenders and waiting staff.
Creatives rated at the top end, along with financial professionals, lawyers and sociologists.
Benefits managers ranked at the top, while dancers scraped in at the bottom.
“Fluid intelligence, the ability to process new information and situations, tends to decline with age,2 said the report.
“Crystallized intelligence, the knowledge of facts and how to perform particular tasks, generally increases through the 50s and 60s, with little decline after that.
That’s one reason designers and stock traders rank higher, or are more susceptible to decline, than, say, teachers and academics.”
