Just a thought

I agree with you. I think I have read that the increase in longevity has plateaued, IYSWIM

Dh worked until he was 71 and would have liked to go on longer.

I couldn't stick it till 60 and retired 6 months early ! Still on my feet 20+ years later , but if I had kept on working I wouldn't have survived

I agree with most of what you say, travelsofar, but doubt if they are "likely to become a strain on the benefit system in years to come more so than nowadays."
Why? Because state pensions are officially classed as benefits anyway, and they are more generous than working-age benefits, so if someone is too ill to work before retirement age, whatever age that happens to be, I can't see that it will add any more to the welfare bill than it would if they were over the retirement age. I don't know if I am explaining myself very well, but i hope you see what I mean.

That said, I think it would be a lot fairer if there was something built into the system that allowed for earlier retirement for people whose health/physical fitness made it extremely hard for them to continue working right up to the official retirement age, but I haven't a clue how that could be put into practice.

I remember saying this a while back. It'll revert back to the 40's/50's in future years when such facilities etc which we have now will be thin on the ground come 50 years hence.
When you think of the amount of GP surgeries either closing or merging it doesn't bode well for our GC/GGC .
Then you have the nursing homes, or don't, as the case may be.
All things considered it doesn't exactly make for a rosy future.

As it is, this generation isn't as robust as us girls have been and some of us still are, yet dietwise not everyone had the best of starts especially during rationing, but we seem to have come through it all relatively " unscathed " apart now from one or two age issues.

Wouldn't it be interesting to be able to see how our youngsters had fared 50 years on ?

I worked at a desk job till I was 64. Even at that age, I found my faculties were waning regarding problem solving, later in the day. If a knotty issue arose, I knew I'd need to attend to it in the morning rather than the afternoon, when I dealt with more mundane issues.

So even with a desk job, as we age, we become more fatigued and the longer we are forced to work, the more evident that will become.

I think there's a real problem for people who work in physically demanding jobs. Imo, they are most likely to need to retire earlier, or face serious ill health.

Actually Ellan I have always believed it was BECAUSE of our restricted diet that many of us are as healthy as we are today.
I was born before the war so had the benefit of hardly any sugar and snacks, small amounts if meat and lots and lots of grown veg.
However that is a diversion, I don't know how people doing physical work or who have jobs/ professions which require quick thinking and responses will cope.
I wouldn't want a 70 year old heart surgeon operating on me. Maybe they will retire earlier on large private pensions , which they have been able to fund from their high salaries.
Just the average Joe then, struggling to mend our roads, drive our public transport, teach our GC until 70.

Home grown veg.