And another area for innovation in the church

An increasing number of older New Zealanders past retiring age are continuing to work, many of them in part-time roles.

A recent report from Statistics NZ shows that the number of people aged 65 years and over in the workforce rose 278% between 1986 and 2006 – from 22,000 to 82,000 driven by such factors as skills shortages, increased life expectancy, more part-time opportunities, the growth of the service industry and ... a buoyant economy.

Although this trend may not survive the current downturn it put us second only to Japan for “elder” labour participation in OECD countries – in 2006, one in six older New Zealanders remained in the workforce with 66% of the women and 43% of the men holding part-time jobs.

slightly amended from the NZIM Managers’ Update, March 2009

Again, where what implications does this have for churches and their attitudes to older people?

Transitions from work to retirement

Sylvia Dixon has produced a study for NZ Stats that looks at changes in the way people now head into retirement. Whereas in the past there was a tendency for a definite cut-off point from work and a sudden move into retirement, now people tend more and more to transition. This is another aspect of the way in which older people regard their lives differently from their forebears.

Dixon's abstract is as follows:

Survey responses indicate that the majority of working-aged New Zealanders would prefer to make a gradual transition from work to retirement, rather than move abruptly from full-time work to non-employment. This study describes the employment patterns and transitions of people who were aged in their 60s and moved from employment to inactivity during the 1999–2007 period, using longitudinal data from the Linked Employer-Employee Dataset.

Four different types of transition to retirement were defined and the relative frequency of each explored. We find that phased transitions, involving either part-time work or a number of transitions in and out of employment before the final exit, were far more common than discrete transitions from full-time work to non-employment. Men were more likely than women to take a traditional path from work to retirement. Although there were some significant variations in the frequency of different work-to-retirement paths across major industries, phased transitions were more prevalent than traditional transitions in all major industries.

International evidence shows that phased retirements are also common in other countries with similar labour markets. The literature suggests that many older adults retire gradually, but some are constrained in their labour supply choices and are unable to achieve the flexible transitions to retirement they would prefer.