What is a Christian response to the issues of later retirement? Is it right that people should work longer in order to plug the gap in pension and social care provision? Is it to be welcomed that older people can increasingly continue to express their vocation and offer service to others through paid employment for as long as they like, without an artificial retirement age? Should older workers instead give up their space in the labour market to make room for the new school- and college-leavers to enter the workforce? And whatever the answers to these questions, how can Christian employers and local churches exercise proper care towards older workers? And if the churches can increasingly no longer automatically rely on a large pool of recently-retired people to maintain some of their bread-and-butter work, how can this work be continued?
(With thanks to the Association of Christian Teachers for highlighting this research in one of their recent e-briefings).