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CHAPTER 7
Learning, work and later life in the UK: guidance needs of an ageing workforce 127

unmet demand is limited, as is the supply. To explore this issue a major study
of the role of training and work in later life in the UK, the learning and work in
later life project, was carried out between 2006 and 2009 (McNair, 2010).

7.2. The UK policy context

Policy interest in the older workforce has been increasing over the past
decade, in response to economic and social implications of rising life
expectancy and declining fertility rates. In the UK, as in most developed
countries, demography confronts governments with the economic challenge
of deteriorating dependency ratios, and potential labour shortages. As a result
of retirement and economic growth, the latest projections suggest there will
be some 13 million vacancies to fill in the UK over a decade (UKCES, 2008),
but the school population which will enter the workforce in that time includes
only eight million, leaving a shortfall of several million people. Demography
also creates cultural challenges: as retirement expands to become a third,
and for some a half, of adult life, questions arise about the nature of the social
contract, between the State and its older citizens and between generations,
as well as questions of the meaning and purpose of life which are close to
some of the traditional concerns of careers counsellors (DWP, 2009).
By international standards the UKʼs labour market participation rates are
high. At the end of 2010 employment rates for people aged 50-64, and over
64 were both the highest since records began (Office of National Statistics,
2011). Real average retirement ages continue to rise, and in 2011 reached
64.5 for men and 62.0 for women. State pension ages, currently 60 for women
and 65 for men, are to be harmonised at 65 by 2018, and raised to 66 by 2020,
and ministers have proposed indexing them to (rising) life expectancy.
In its review of older labour-market policies, the OECD found that the UK
had gone further than most Member States to eliminate incentives to early
retirement, and to create incentives to stay longer in work (OECD, 2005).
When age discrimination at work was outlawed in 2006, a default retirement
age of 65 was created as an interim measure, allowing employers to dismiss
people on grounds of age at that point (or later), subject to a process of
appeal. This created a formal system for employers and employees to discuss
retirement, and most requests to stay were, in the event, approved, suggesting
that the process avoided a significant loss of human resources through
premature retirement. However, the default retirement age was abolished in
2011, and older people now have a right to continue indefinitely, subject to