Aging of U.S. Workforce Accelerates During Recession

The American work force is graying — and not just because the American population itself is graying.

Excerpts from Pew Research Center Survey

Older adults are staying in the labor force longer, and younger adults are staying out of it longer. Both trends took shape about two decades ago. Both have intensified during the current recession. And both are expected to continue after the economy recovers.

A new nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project finds that a majority (54%) of workers ages 65 and older say the main reason they work is that they want to. Just 17% say the main reason is that they need the paycheck. An additional 27% say they’re motivated by a mix of desire and need.

According to the Pew Research survey, nearly four-in-ten adults who are working past the median retirement age of 62 say they have delayed their retirement because of the recession. Among workers ages 50 to 61, fully 63% say they might have to push back their expected retirement date because of current economic conditions.

According to one government estimate, 93% of the growth in the U.S. labor force from 2006 to 2016 will be among workers ages 55 and older.

Other key findings:

Security trumps salary. By a ratio of nearly two-to-one, survey respondents say they would prefer a job that offers better security (59%) over one that offers higher pay (33%) but less stability. It’s not the recession that drives this preference. A similar question asked by the General Social Survey in 1989 (when the economy was in the midst of an expansion) produced a similar result.

Despite tough times, job satisfaction remains high. Even in the face of widespread layoffs, pay freezes and involuntary furloughs, nine-in-ten employed adults say they are either completely (30%) or mostly (60%) satisfied with their job. In recent decades, levels of job satisfaction have tended to remain stable through good times and bad.

Older workers are the happiest workers. Some 54% of workers ages 65 and older say they are “completely satisfied” with their job, compared with just 29% of workers ages 16 to 64. The explanation lies in figures cited above — a high percentage of these workers are working because they want to, not because they need to.

Retirement is not always voluntary. Only about half (51%) of all current retirees say they retired because they wanted to. About a third (32%) say they had to retire for health or other reasons, and about one-in-ten (9%) say their employer forced them to retire.

Even so, retirement gets high marks. More than half of all retirees (57%) say their retirement has turned out to be very satisfying; an additional 23% say it has been fairly satisfying. Only about one-in-six describe retirement as not too (10%) or not at all (6%) satisfying.

The public is skeptical about full-time working moms. Just 14% of men and 10% of women say that a full-time job is the “ideal” situation for a woman who has a young child. A plurality of the public (44%) say a part-time job is ideal for such a mother, while a sizable minority (38%) say the ideal situation is for her not to work outside the home at all.

Most working moms would rather have a part-time job. Among mothers of young children who have a full-time job outside the home, six-in-ten (61%) say they would prefer to work part time. By contrast, just 19% of fathers who have a full-time job and a young child say they would prefer to work part time.

Comments

[Robert Mart...:]

Great article, though I disagree with the optimistic conclusion that older workers are not driven by the money.

Statistically, I expect nearly ALL young workers to report that they "need the money". Except for the few folks who are independently wealthy, most of us work to survive. So it is intuitively obvious that a higher % of young workers will say that they "need" to work.

Likewise, most studies of happiness show that people get happier as they age. This explains a rise in job satisfaction for older demographic cohorts cited in the article.

More to the point, the optimistic conclusion by the author contradicts my everyday experience. Nearly all older workers I know are anxious about the future, especially since their retirement accounts have been devastated. They see rising deficits that threaten Medicare and Social Security, and they suspect that something is deeply wrong with the country. I described this last week at length in "The Deflation of the American Dream" seekingalpha.com/artic...

We can respectfully disagree about the same statistics, so I thank the author for these useful data, and I would welcome a response.

Rob

Sep 03 01:34 PM

[ObjectiveFu...:]

44% of seniors still say they need the money, even if they also like work. That's a lot of folks.

Consider also these choice quotes from a McKinsey & Co. publication on the Baby Boom from Oct 2008 (written pre-Crash):

"New McKinsey research reveals that 60 percent of boomers won’t be able to maintain a lifestyle close to their current one without continuing to work...

"50 percent of the generation’s population, controlling almost 25 percent of total US consumption by 2015—envision a comfortable retirement like that of the affluent but haven’t prepared for it....

"Our analysis also indicates that 60 percent of boomers will need to work just to maintain 80 percent of their current consumption and that more than 40 percent (29 million) will be working at age 65. That is twice the number of people from the silent generation who were working at the same age (14 million, or 30 percent). By 2015 more than onethird of the labor force will be over the age of 50."

Sep 03 04:42 PM

[Pat C:]

This consumption is not coming back - ever.

Sep 03 06:01 PM