What is a “good” and “useful” old age, and how do we ensure it? Ageism is currently one of British culture’s biggest muddles. We rightly deplore turfing senior citizens – at some arbitrary retirement age – on to the scrap heap, their allotments, or towards decades of rail travel visiting the grandkids, courtesy of the Senior Railcard. And we love those doughty old ladies of broadcasting (think Joan Bakewell) who turn up from time to time to run rings around some unfortunate young man of 40. But whatever the rules of any profession, no one fancies having their heart bypass carried out by an 85-year-old. Nor do they want to force a scaffolder up 10 floors of dodgy metalwork much past their mid-60s – or watch a presidential debate in which one candidate can’t get the facts right and the other can’t get out his words.
There’s also the inconvenient truth that sometimes, keeping options open for the elderly can prevent,or delay more junior people getting a proper foothold on the career ladder. Forms of discrimination and fairness sometimes clash. You can see that in the argument over Labour’s proposed introduction of a retirement age of 80 for the House of Lords. Yes, it can be seen as an ageist gesture that would deprive parliament of some of its most experienced voices. But how do we rate the importance of hearing new people and voices, rather than making them wait until they are equally venerable?
This is just the question that the University of Cambridge is debating right now. A niche dispute maybe, but one with wider implications. The university sector in general makes it hard for those early in their career to get properly on the career ladder. Forget any idea you might have of researchers spending a few dedicated years in the library or laboratory before slipping effortlessly into a job for life. Largely thanks to funding cuts, most early career academics I know spend a decade or so “on the road”, going from one temporary job to the next (a year is standard, sometimes much less, and often the jobs are hundreds of miles apart) before struggling into a permanent job in their mid- to late-30s. They are known in the trade as the “precariat” – and it is a system that is obviously bad for them (try getting a mortgage), but also for students (who want continuity of teaching) and for universities themselves (which don’t thrive on this kind of constant rotation).
That is the main justification behind Cambridge’s mandatory retirement age of 67. It opens up opportunities at the bottom of the career pathway in a university that people tend not to leave unless they are pushed. And a Cambridge working group – of which, full disclosure, I was a member, as a voice of the retired – has recently recommended that a fixed retirement age be retained, though raised to 69, to reflect changing demographics.
It is controversial. Some people at the university would like to abolish the retirement age altogether: it is ageist discrimination, they say, that does not reflect the rights and potential contribution of those who are over 70. They have a point (though their arguments sometimes smell of that number one falsehood of those about to retire: that they are irreplaceable, and the university would find it hard to manage without them). On the other side is clear evidence that retaining a retirement age opens up literally hundreds of job opportunities for new people over a 10-year period. It’s a choice, but for me “intergenerational fairness” caps ageism.
It will come down to a vote of staff, as issues like this still (happily) do in democratic Cambridge. But whichever side wins, it exposes bigger issues that we need to face in Cambridge and outside. What is retirement for? What kind of contribution can the retired make, without “job-blocking”? How is this linked to new patterns of careers (and, for many, worse pension provision)? To put it bluntly, what are we supposed to do between retiring and dying?
The university promises to think hard about all those questions. It’s an opportunity to lead the way in how we value and seriously engage with retired professionals.
On a grand scale, it’s much harder to get funding for any kind of research project once you no longer have a university job (and many retired academics are still “research active”, as the jargon goes). Then there are the apparently trivial, but irritating, micro-aggressions that could easily be resolved. If you lose a university email address, it’s much harder to get libraries or archives to take you seriously when you make an inquiry (“gmail.com” doesn’t have the clout of “cam.ac.uk”).
After spending years, sometimes decades, at an institution, simply taking away card access to libraries and workspaces – even access to the humble printer – can sting. A few years ago, one of my academic friends (not at Cambridge) went into his department the morning after his retirement party to thank the organisers. He discovered that the pigeonhole for his post had already been removed: back then “no pigeonhole” meant “social death”; it was a symbol of the scrap heap.
The value people can add to professional communities doesn’t dissipate the day they retire. Institutions and industries must find creative ways to engage with retirees. Let’s hope Cambridge comes up with some ideas that work outside the dreaming spires. Meanwhile, I know – having retired two years ago – that I could not look my precarious colleagues in the eye if I was sticking it out in my post as a job-blocker. Intergenerational fairness for me, please.
Mary Beard is an author, an honorary fellow of Newnham College and former professor of classics at Cambridge University