Carol Allen is 82 and working hard. A writer, director and theatre producer, Allen is still winning prizes, running workshops and holding drama classes.
“Work, for me, is purpose. Without work – that is to say, without staying active and being part of society – my life would be without purpose,” said Allen. “I don’t separate working from living. I would actually like to expand what I do, it’s just a matter of getting the funding.”
Allen is not alone in continuing to work into her 80s and beyond. New data from the ONS commissioned by Restless, a website for older people, found 13,255 women aged 80 and above across Great Britain were working in 2022.
Most of them, the statistics revealed, were working through choice, with 55% – or 7,343 – opting for the flexibility of self-employment and entrepreneurship.
“My view on retirement is that you need to stay active for as long as possible,” said Allen. “That’s how you keep the horrors of extreme old age at bay. You need to be curious and keep learning.”
The data revealed that it’s not just female octogenarians who are keen to be gainfully employed: the data, taken from the Annual Population Survey, found 22,263 men over 80 were still working – 12,706 of whom were self-employed.
Michael Blakstad, 83, from Winchester, founded Media Vs Dementia last year, a company providing individually curated media for people with dementia, to stimulate blood flow in the brain.
Alec Taylor, 82, from Dublin, never retired from his job as a consultant, coaching and training. Instead, he’s scaled up, recently launching an international community support group, Talk and Motivation Community Get-Togethers, simultaneously in Dublin, Portugal and Vienna.
“People resign inwardly in their older age because it’s what they’re expected to do – to shut down and focus on their hobbies – but working on is entirely natural,” he said. “We need to readdress what older age is and what many of us are still capable of. We need to move expectations of older people from being passive spectators to active participants.”
Many agree. At 84, Stewart Brand is president of the Long Now Foundation, Mark Killoran still runs his own florist in Galway, and Alice Portnoy makes and sells jewellery at a local craft fair in London.
At 80, John Low has just released the first podcast in a new series he is presenting for the Senior Times Podcast Platform Audio Book Series, in association with Naxos. Mike Ingoldby is still running a bioenergy firm, Bowland Bioenergy Ltd and Dr John Boel is still running AcuNova, his acupuncture business.
Numbers of octogenarian workers have yet to rise to pre-Covid levels – in 2018, almost 44,000 people aged 80 and above were working – but experts say that the 2022 total, 35,488 people, marks the start of a post-Covid recovery.
Self-employment, the data reveals, is the preferred type of employment for this age group, with 57% of workers aged 80 years and older opting for self-employment in 2022, compared with 45% of those in their 70s and 23% of those in their 60s.
“Our experience is that people in their 70s and 80s who are still working are usually doing so through choice rather than necessity,” said Stuart Lewis, the chief executive of Rest Less, an online community for older people. “They are fit, driven and highly capable and have a strong sense of purpose and good reason to continue to work.
Tina McKenzie, the policy chair at the Federation of Small Businesses, said age “shouldn’t be a barrier to recognising talent and ability in the workplace”. “A great idea for a new product or business can strike at age 18 or age 80, while older workers and business owners have experience and wisdom to offer,” she added.
But, she said, employers need to do more to attract and retain older workers, including allowing flexitime, staggered hours and hybrid working.
“Businesses which overlook the skills, talents, and capabilities of older workers are not doing themselves any favours,” she added. “With skills shortages still a huge issue in many sectors and in many parts of the country, older workers could be key to unlocking growth.”
But other experts sounded a note of caution. Joanna Elson, the chief Executive of the Independent Age organisation, said: “The most important factor here is choice. Unfortunately, we know some older people are being forced to return to work because of the increasing cost of living, and this can damage their health and wellbeing.
“With more than 2 million older people living in poverty, people in later life must have an adequate income, including access to the financial support they are entitled to, to give them the opportunity to retire if they need or choose to,” she added.
