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Aging Labour Force Reflects Boomers
By Bruce Little, The Globe and Mail
March 8, 2004
At first glance, the numbers are so startling as to be unbelievable.
Last year, employment in Canada grew 2.2 per cent, but the number of jobs held by those 55 and older grew 10.7 per cent. In 2002, total employment also expanded 2.2 per cent and jobs for older workers by 10.4 per cent.
These are massive disparities. A group that in 2001 accounted for fewer than 11 per cent of all workers scooped up more than 53 per cent of 669,000 jobs that sprouted in Canada in 2002 and 2003.
Is something dreadfully wrong here? Not at all. The economy did not really create jobs for older workers at the expense of everyone else. Rather, the baby boomers finally began to hit 55.
Almost certainly, most of that surge in employment of older workers reflects nothing more than that several hundred thousand Canadians turned 55 while holding down the jobs they were already doing. But with each birthday, a job for someone 55 and over was "created" and a job for someone under 55 was "lost."
The baby-boom generation -- born between 1947 and 1966 -- has been the subject of discussion for decades. Now boomers are moving into the older-worker category.
Take a look at the working-age population -- those 15 and older -- for evidence. In the past two years, it grew by an average of 316,000 people annually, almost spot on the average for the previous five years. But the number in the 55-plus age category expanded by an average of 219,000 a year in 2002 and 2003, compared with the 142,000 average for the period from 1997 through 2001.
Another boomer trend is evident in the latest annual employment data from Statistics Canada. Much of the growth in employment of older workers is being driven by women. In the past two years, the number of women workers 55 and over has climbed by an average of 12.4 per cent annually, compared with 9.3 per cent for men.
Boomer women, to a much greater extent than their mothers, got university degrees and college diplomas, found jobs and kept them. When they had kids, they either kept working, or returned to work after a few years of child-rearing. Many are still on the job.
From 1976 (which is as far back as current data go) through the late 1990s, a steady 17 per cent or so of older women took part in the labour force, meaning they were working or seeking work. That share crept up to 19.4 per cent in 2001, but suddenly charged higher over the next two years, reaching 23 per cent in 2003. That participation rate still sounds low, but it includes all women 55 and older, so it is still dominated by the great number of preboomer women.
Inevitably, it will go higher in a hurry. The participation rate for women in the 55-59 age group alone reached almost 60 per cent last year (from only 53 per cent in 2001). Just behind is a bigger cohort in their early 50s and 40s, with participation rates at 76 per cent and 82 per cent respectively.
"This influence on the participation rates of older Canadians should continue for a few more years," Informetrica Ltd., an Ottawa-based economic research company, said in a recent report.
It's true Canadians have been retiring at much younger ages than their parents but, even so, odds are that as boomer women move into the older age group, the number of those 55 and over who keep working will swamp the number who retire for many years yet.
Indeed, there are preliminary signs the trend toward earlier retirement may be ending. The median retirement age (half retired earlier and half later) fell to just under 61 in 1999 from 65 in the late 1970s. In a study last year, Statscan said that from 1997 through 2001, 43 per cent of those who retired did so in their 50s, up from 36 per cent in the 1992-96 period. But the latest figures, which include 2003, indicate the median retirement age has been edging up since 1999.
Plenty more boomers are moving into middle age and advancing on 55. The single biggest clump of them were born between 1959 and 1963 and are now 40 to 44 years old. And sure enough, that 40-44 age group accounted for a bigger share of the labour force in 2003 than any other five-year cluster of Canadians. The only others that came close were their neighbouring cohorts -- those aged 35 to 39 and those aged 45-49.
The lesson is simple. The employment increases seen in the past two years -- when those born in 1947 and 1948 turned 55 -- is just a hint of what's to come. By 2008, those who were in their early 50s last year -- another big batch of early boomers -- will be in their late 50s.
We don't know exactly how retirement patterns will unfold among the boomers, but it seems certain that higher employment of older Canadians will be with us for several more years to come.
Copyright © 2004
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