Reframing work in retirement years

AUDIO: In addition to a source of income, work in conventional retirement years can provide an opportunity for workers and employers to provide and receive care, but it is not licence to increase retirement age, according to cultural anthropologist Caitrin Lynch.

Professor Lynch, an associate professor of anthropology at Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts in the United States, told the Australian Association of Gerontology national conference in Adelaide last week that it was time to rethink work in retirement years.

The keynote speaker presented her research on Vita Needle, a factory geared toward employing people beyond the conventional retirement age.

The profit-making organisation offers a flexible and nurturing workplace for workers, most of whom are aged in their sixties, seventies, eighties or nineties, that is described as a win-win by employer and employees alike.

Professor Lynch said when we reframed what work in retirement years looked like, we would stop asking the narrow question of whether the retirement age needed to be raised.

Following her presentation, AAA’s Natasha Egan spoke to Professor Lynch about the approach she was advocating: