Those who wish to work after retirement should not be discriminated against

The question of whether people should work after they qualify for retirement is constantly debated, especially in recent years when we are lacking various experts. In Croatia, the law has been liberalized to allow retirees to engage in work even after retirement.

However, there are limitations, partly justified, but the logical question is: why is the work of a bricklayer restricted in retirement, while it is allowed for a person who is eighty years old to be the president of the country?

This question was reminded to me by a post from my retired colleague, radio journalist Tomislav Radić, who commented on a post by another colleague, Branimir Perković from Bloomberg Adriatic, published on LinkedIn.

In short, Perković writes that pensions are increasingly lower in relation to the average salary, even though the retirement age is rising. One of the reasons is, he states, the deteriorating ratio of workers to retirees, and he highlights another very important reason why the gap is widening – an increasing percentage of people are reaching retirement age.

He notes that according to data from the World Bank and the UN, today in Croatia, 82 percent of men reach the age of 65. This is much higher than in 1989 when only 67 percent of them reached that age. He concludes that the retirement age must be increased, and in a comment on that post, retired colleague Radić suggests that retirement should be at 72 years.

Those who do not wish to do so, he writes, can go into full retirement at 65 years, and those who wish to continue working ‘for certain professions must obtain a medical certificate (e.g., construction workers, surgeons, drivers)’. The Medical Chamber, Radić concludes, should determine which professions these are because biological age is not the same as chronological age, meaning there are no two identical people in the world.

If he hadn’t been president…

First of all, I agree that people should be allowed to work full-time if they wish, but in all professions. It is true that people were previously pushed into retirement because there were many younger individuals who could not find jobs or advance in their careers due to older colleagues, so it made sense. But why shouldn’t we also leave retirees to the labor market, and if a company values an experienced expert, even if they are older, more than someone who still needs to learn the job or gain additional experience, let them hire the older one.

Of course, a retirement age limit should be set because there will always be those who do not wish to work anymore, but once an employee retires, they should be allowed to participate in job competitions.

I write all this because, like many, I wonder why a retired engineer cannot work like any employee, while the president of the country can be a person who is over eighty years old. The job of an engineer is responsible, but the job of the president of the country is immeasurably more responsible. For example, former President Stjepan Mesić took office at the age of 66 (in 2000) and after his second term, he was 76 years old.

I do not criticize him; on the contrary, I consider him the best Croatian president since independence; he was healthy and had the psychophysical abilities to perform that very responsible duty. But if he had continued to work in a company as a lawyer, at 66 he would already be retired despite his psychophysical capability.

No logic

On the other hand, let us remember former American President Joe Biden, who, for well-known reasons, withdrew from the campaign for a second term. He was elected president of the most powerful country in the world in 2020 when he was 78 years old, and he finished his term at 82. Responsibility? Incomparable to that of the Croatian president.

Thus, even in the world, a president can be a person who is already of retirement age, but restrictions are placed on bricklayers or engineers.

This topic may seem too general and unimportant to the reader, but I have wanted to write about it for a while. After all, no matter how unimportant it seems to us, I still think it is important. I, like many, do not see the logic in this, and that is why I support the idea of allowing those who wish to work. Of course, their psychophysical abilities should be checked.

POST SCRIPTUM

I believe there is no need to fear that retirees, if allowed to compete equally for jobs with others, will flood the job market. I remember my mother was afraid of retirement (what will she do), and now she is happy about it and would not work anymore. My godfather (a police inspector) is retiring at the beginning of next year and says he can hardly wait. The impression is that most of those approaching retirement think this way, which means that young people, generally speaking, do not need to fear their competition.