Population scholar Peter McDonald has said that ‘ Australia is witnessing a dramatic increase in older workers as better-educated employees enter the labour market and take up physically undemanding jobs and reach their 60’s still with dependent children’.
In April of this year, almost 64 per cent of men aged 60-64 were in the labour force compared with 45 per cent in April 2000. In the same period, the participation of women in the same age group, grew from quarter to half.