Firefighters must pass physical tests to continue in this career.
In recent decades, more and more workers have chosen to continue working later in life or find part-time employment during retirement, bucking the trend of retiring early and spending many years idle or pursuing leisure activities. The choice to work may seem like a basic right, but some types of jobs enforce mandatory retirement, which forces workers to retire when they reach a certain age or fail to pass a physical exam or ability test.
Legal Factors
In the United States, age discrimination is illegal and employers cannot establish or enforce mandatory retirement policies. However, there are several types of jobs and industries that are exceptions to this law. In general, these are jobs that require a special sort of physical or mental ability. Airline pilots must retire at age 60 to ensure that passengers have a pilot with adequate reflexes and critical reasoning abilities. Teachers also face mandatory retirement ages that are designed to provide students with the highest quality instruction. Police officers and firefighters may be subject to mandatory retirement if they fail to pass a physical evaluation that older members must submit to, which helps ensure that they have the necessary strength and dexterity to meet the high demands of the job.
Results
Mandatory retirement policies result in a predictable, regular flow of retirements, which, in turn, opens up new job opportunities for less senior workers. This, by extension, opens up new entry-level positions and creates new jobs while bringing fresh workers into the field. It also ensures that older workers, who may no longer have the ability to perform the job efficiently, are not given the taxing responsibilities associated with public safety and education, for instance.
Economic Costs
There are far-reaching economic consequences to mandatory retirement. Besides creating new jobs, mandatory retirement policies remove senior, high-earning workers and replace them with entry-level workers, which may save a company money in terms of payroll. However, retirees who are forced out of their jobs lose their earning power and may become reliant on social security and other publicly funded programs.
Plateaued Workers
Mandatory retirement also reduces or eliminates the phenomenon known as plateaued workers. According to Trinity College, this occurs when workers reach a level of pay or responsibility with no room for further advancement. These older workers may have little motivation to continue working hard. This can decrease morale, while clogging promotional channels for lower-ranking workers. Plateaued workers also contribute to greater absenteeism, thus hurting a company's bottom line.
Age Discrimination
Mandatory retirement can have the negative effect of creating an image of older workers as inept and unable to contribute to society. Workers forced to retire may cite age discrimination as a factor in the situation, but proponents of mandatory retirement note that similar regulations apply to young workers, who may only be allowed to work a certain number of hours on school nights or may not be allowed to operate certain machinery under state laws. In order to avoid charges of age discrimination, employers not involved in one of the industries associated with mandatory retirement must allow older workers to retain their jobs unless their performance suffers or they opt for voluntary retirement.
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