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Working and ageing
128 Guidance and counselling for mature learners

normal employment law. There are financial incentives to defer drawing the
State pension, and individuals are allowed to draw on occupational and State
pensions while continuing in employment. However, UK State pensions are
low by international standards (AVIVA, 2010), with a significant minority of
people supplementing these through more substantial company schemes.

7.3. Shape of life course

Despite these changes, policy and public attitudes, still tend to see 60/65 as
the normal retirement age, and government statistics still use these to define
the working age population. This has been recently criticised in the report of
an independent national commission of inquiry into the future for lifelong
learning (Schuller and Watson, 2009). The commission argued that the
traditional model of the life course, with youth ending around 20, and
retirement beginning at 60/65 fails to recognise the real nature of most
peopleʼs lives in the 21st century.
The commission proposed a redefinition in public policy based around a
four-stage model, with the life course divided at 25, 50 (the point after which
age discrimination begins to be powerful in the labour market, and ill health
drives some people out of work), and 75 (by which point most people are to
some degree dependent on others for some requirements of everyday life).
Table 7.1 compares the traditional and proposed models.

Table 7.1. A new model of the life course

0-20 21-25 25-50 50-65 65-75 75+

Current model Youth Adult/worker Retired/pensioner
Proposed model Extended youth Adult/worker Third age Fourth age

Source: Schuller and Watson, 2009.

The commission argued that public policy, and statistical systems should
use the four-stage model because the traditional model:
(a) fails to reflect how people live now. Most people now do not establish
themselves in full adult roles until their mid-20s, while most wish to (and
are capable of) continuing contributing to society well into their 70s;
(b) produces dysfunctional imbalances in pressure across the life course. The
second phase puts extreme stress (evident in wellbeing studies) on