Retirement at the age of 65 should no longer be mandatory and the Government should introduce legislation to protect older employees from "ageism", according to a senior psychologist.
Ms Geraldine Kenny, principal clinical psychologist with the Eastern Health Board, said that many employees began to experience ageism from the age of 40, when employers tended to stop sending them on continuous training and development courses.
Yet all the research showed that older people could learn and their work rate was just as good as younger counterparts, Ms Kenny told a conference hosted by the Western Health Board in Galway.
Obviously, safety was a factor in certain occupations, such as commercial flying, but in general people should be allowed to reach their full potential in the workplace beyond the age of 65, she said.
Many other countries had already removed the mandatory requirement, including the US, she said, and the results had been very positive. The removal of the ban should be matched by legislation to protect people from ageist practices by employers.
Ms Kenny also called for provision of support services for some 30 per cent of people in retirement who found the change psychologically stressful. It was a myth to suggest that all those who finished work found the transition difficult, but there were several predictors of retirement stress, she said.
Men whose retirement was unexpected or involuntary generally found it more stressful, and loss of income also appeared to be a particularly significant predictor of poor morale, she said. Research showed that poor health in retirement was second only to inadequate finances. Significantly, fears about the effect on marital relationships were often overestimated, with some spouses dreading the "husband under foot" syndrome and others looking forward to a "second honeymoon".
