I am at an age when retirement has increasingly discernible features. But I don’t feel anywhere near ready to retire, especially if I’m going to live another 30 years or more and want a decent income so I can travel and enjoy life. I also have loved ones who are close to 65 and more vital, productive and engaged at work than people decades younger. All this to say — 65 comes at you fast, and you don’t feel unable to work another minute longer on your 65th birthday. Nor will you feel you can actually afford to retire in an era when many of us don’t have workplace pensions and we’re living longer than ever.

Today in The Conversation Canada, Thomas Klassen of York University makes a compelling argument that we should rethink how we perceive old age to more accurately reflect the total number of people in Canada’s working age population. He writes that even though mandatory retirement at age 65 was eliminated more than a decade ago, laws and public policy, including Statistics Canada definitions, continue to assume that everyone retires at 65.

He calls for a modern definition of the many stages of aging after 65, adding it would “mitigate stereotypes of older workers and ageism while prodding governments to reform outdated laws and provide a boost to an economy often facing worker shortages.”

Also today:

All the best.

Lee-Anne Goodman

Politics, Business + Economics Editor

No one suddenly becomes old and unproductive on their 65th birthday, so a reformulation of both working age and retirement is sorely warranted. (Shutterstock)

Antiquated thinking about old age hinders Canada’s economic and social development

Thomas Klassen, York University, Canada

A revised retirement age would significantly decrease the number of people classified as ‘old’ and would more accurately reflect the total number of working people in Canada.

Dodos have been extinct for centuries, but it’s not a simple matter to definitively designate a species as extinct. (Shutterstock)

When is a species really extinct?

Arne Mooers, Simon Fraser University

Species are declared extinct when there have been no verifiable sightings for 50 years. Declaring a species extinct has implications for conservation efforts and policies.

Cancer groundshot highlights that investment in improving access to treatments already proven to work saves more lives than discovery of a new treatment. (Shutterstock)

Cancer groundshot: Access to proven treatments must parallel development of new therapies

Bishal Gyawali, Queen's University, Ontario

Globally, most cancer patients die not because they don’t have access to newer drugs, but because they don’t have access to even basic treatments. Cancer groundshot aims to improve treatment access.

Protestors gather outside a Manhattan federal court during an abortion rights demonstration on May 14, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/Jeenah Moon)

Roe vs. Wade highlights the important role of high courts in democratic societies

Danielle McNabb, Queen's University, Ontario

The potential reversal of Roe. vs. Wade should serve as a stark warning to the power the high courts hold to transform societal conditions.

Once described by West Moberly Elders as being as abundant as “bugs on the landscape,” caribou populations are now rapidly disappearing. (Giguere/Wildlife Infometrics)

Indigenous-led conservation aims to rekindle caribou abundance and traditions

Clayton Lamb, University of British Columbia

An Indigenous-led effort to increase caribou abundance and cultural practices like hunting is successfully increasing the caribou population

What will it take for the metaverse to live up to its potential? (Shutterstock)

What is the metaverse, and what can we do there?

Adrian Ma, Toronto Metropolitan University

The metaverse is being hyped as a game-changing virtual platform that will transform our digital lives. But it has some inherent challenges to overcome in order to achieve mass adoption.

La Conversation Canada

file zk zj. RGB Ventures / SuperStock / Alamy Stock Photo

Épidémie de variole du singe : ce qu’on doit savoir

Michael Head, University of Southampton

La variole du singe est un virus encore peu connu, mais les épidémies actuelles apporteront un lot d’informations nouvelles.

Ukraine Invasion

COVID-19

Culture + Society

Health