Section FourFlexible Retirement as a Source of Labor
With an aging population, it seems likely that labor shortages
may be partially addressed by extending the number of years
that employees work before retirement. In the future, a
number of factors may motivate older workers to remain on the
job. Some of these influences are limited retirement benefits or
inadequacies in health care benefits for retirees.
The larger older-age cohorts and smaller youngerage
cohorts may create a labor shortage.^34 Because of this
shortage, older people may be called on to provide needed
goods and services. This may be a fortuitous situation because
the psychological well-being of older persons is enhanced if
they are allowed options for flexible retirement. This could be
implemented with phased-in retirement or a reduced number of
working days, instead of total retirement. Because of the
centrality of work to our lives, the opportunity to continue
working could provide great benefit. Surveys of managers and
executives indicate a desire to work more years through various
flexible approaches, such as phased retirement, transfers, and
job redesign. Nonetheless, even though mandatory retirement
at a given age is prohibited for most types of employees, senior
executives are sometimes opposed to flexible retirement
approaches. Some of this resistance may be related to the
difficulties involved in individually determining who should be