Pro's And Con's On Mandatory Retirement
Work is usually seen as a necessary pursuit for human adults. There may be some exceptions. Housewives do work at home that does not earn them money. Some very fortunate people have never had to work a day in their lives because they have inherited a large trust fund that can support them and their descendants for generations. For almost every other adult, work is a process that goes on until retirement age is reached. Should this be the case or should all jobs allow people to continue until they decide to stop or until they die?
One good reason to have a fixed retirement age is that it helps to prevent people from working when they are no longer able to do their jobs as well. Not everyone who passes a certain age experiences a significant decline in cognitive abilities however. For them, such restrictions might seem like discrimination. The experience that they have acquired in their field may be squandered from that point on.
Another reason that the case for a fixed retirement age could be argued is that it frees up jobs for younger people to get a try at them. This can bring new ideas and ways of thinking into an organization that was stagnating. It can also give younger people the purchasing power to afford homes and start families which is essentially what keeps an economy stable or thriving. Conversely, expelling people from an organization once they have reached a certain age can cause you to lose some of the best minds in the industry. The older people are often the ones most acquainted with how an organization functions and more likely to be able to see problems coming from a distance that a new employee might miss.
Aside from the reasons listed above, many would state that without this mandatory retirement age, many senior citizens might not give themselves an opportunity to relax. This fails to take into consideration that with lower birth rates and rising inflation, many pension funds are not adequate to maintain a similar lifestyle to what was enjoyed while employed. Worse yet, there has been scientific evidence that remaining idle at home can lead to a decrease in brain power which can cause more problems later on. To put it simply, work can keep you younger longer.
For the most part, retirement is usually a good idea but it is still up to the person to decide when it should take place.