Good morning.
On page 2 of the presentation, you can see that the participation rate of persons aged 55 and older is increasing. There have been many changes since 1976 in terms of the group of persons aged 55 and older. The proportion of this demographic within the general population has increased. While the demographic represented 17% of the total population in 1976, in 2011 that proportion had increased to 27%. Based on Statistics Canada's Demosim projection model, this demographic will make up more than one-third of the total population by 2031.
Education levels have also increased. The graph on the left side of the slide shows that, between 1996 and 2012, the proportion of persons aged 55 and older with less than a high school diploma—1996 is in grey and 2012 is in blue—went from 52% to 27%, while the proportion of this demographic with a university degree went from 8% to 18%.
The graph on the right shows participation rates, which also increased between 1996 and 2012, particularly among women. The participation rate represents the number of persons employed and unemployed compared to the overall population. For men, there was an increase of 11 percentage points between 1996 and 2012. That is the black line. The rate went from 32% to 43% between 1996 and 2012. However, the rate in 2012 remained lower than that in 1976, which was 47.2%.
For women, the participation rate increased by nearly 15 percentage points, from 17% to 32%, following a period of stability between 1976 and 1996.
Let's move on to slide 3.
While there has been widespread increase in the participation rate across all age groups since 1996, this increase was greatest in relative terms for persons aged 65 to 69. They are represented by the black line. For men, the rate practically doubled, from 16.5% to 30%, while for women the rate increased from 7% to 19%.
The red line, representing the group of persons aged 60 to 64, also shows a significant increase in percentage points, namely 15 percentage points for men and 22 points for women. There is also a significant increase for women aged 55 to 59—the blue line—of 21 percentage points.
As you can see on page 4, the participation rate goes up as the level of educational attainment does. The graph on the left shows the numbers for men, and the one on the right, for women. Since 1996, participation rates have increased for all levels of educational attainment and have been more pronounced among women. The gap between men and women by educational attainment has shrunk since 1996. In 2012, men's participation rate went from 24% to 50%, based on the level of educational attainment, and from 12% to 45% for women.
As you can see on page 5, the proportion of full-time workers decreases as you move up the age groups. In 2012, the proportion of men and women aged 55 and over and working full-time was lower than for workers aged 25 to 44. The numbers are relatively stable over time for men, and have been since 1996, but are increasing among women, particularly those aged 60 to 69. The proportion increased by 8 and 9 percentage points, respectively, going from 61% to 69% for women aged 60 to 64, and from 42% to 51% for women aged 65 to 69.
On slide 6, you can see that workers aged 50 and over have been more likely to remain longer in the labour market since 1996. In 2009, a worker aged 50 could expect to spend 16.3 more years in the labour market before retiring. This is an increase of 2.5 years compared to the low observed in 1996, when the expected number of years to remain in the labour market was 12.7 years.
If we convert that into age, workers in the labour market aged 50 have seen their retirement age go from 62.7 years in 1996 to 66.3 years in 2012.
In 1977, the retirement age was lower than in 2012 and was 64.3 years. Those durations are comparable by gender and educational attainment. A good part of the increase in life expectancy observed since 1996 is therefore reflected in the labour market. Retirement duration is therefore stable in terms of years.
On page 7, you can see that health is, however, likely to limit growth potential for years of work. On average, people are more likely to have serious disabilities after age 75. That varies by income. Serious disabilities begin at about age 72 for low-income men and at about age 77 for people who have a higher income.
Let's move on to page 8.
The following slides deal with retirement. Retirement is a complex process. Data on the subject usually deals with a subjective definition of retirement. In other words, respondents say whether they are retired or not. However, people who say they are retired today may later return to the labour market. So we don't know if people are fully retired. In one cycle of our General Social Survey, conducted in 2007, we asked questions about retirement intentions.
Let's go to page 9.
When we asked Canadians aged 45 to 59 if they were certain about their planned age of retirement, 61% said they were very certain or quite certain about their age of retirement, and 39% said they were not at all certain about when they would retire or did not intend to retire.
On page 10, for the 61% of Canadians aged 45 to 59 who had reported the age at which they intended to retire—so who were certain or quite certain of their retirement age—we examined the characteristics of those who planned to retire at 65 or later. For all workers aged 45 to 59, 37% planned to retire at 65 or later. The proportion was higher among recent immigrants. It was 60%. It was 48% for single people living alone. It was higher for self-employed workers, at about 47%. It was higher for people in homes where the family income was $40,000 or less. That proportion was 62%.
Workers in Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec and Manitoba were also less likely to retire after age 65. The proportion was 30%, whereas the Canadian average is 37.5%. We also noted significantly different proportions based on industrial sector, by profession, by health, and housing tenure, in other words whether people owned their homes or rented.
On page 11, we also asked people aged 50 and over, who had initially retired between 1997 and 2007, why they retired. Multiple responses were allowed. The reason mentioned the most often was that people wanted to stop working. After that, they said that they had sufficient income and access to early retirement measures in their jobs. Health problems and stress were mentioned by 26% of respondents, whereas slightly less than 10% of them reported having to look after a loved one. Lay-offs were mentioned by 12% of them, and mandatory retirement measures by 10%. The fact that their skills were outdated was mentioned by 8% of respondents. Reasons like discrimination and having a reduced pension while earning a salary were mentioned by 5% and 7% of respondents.
To conclude, let's look at page 12.
A Survey of Older Workers also asked workers aged 50 to 64 if certain employment conditions would encourage them to retire later. Part-time work and flextime were the two most important factors. Other factors were telework and receiving a pension income while working. Those numbers do not enable us to measure whether the people did indeed remain employed longer because of such measures. Those were simply peoples' intentions.
That concludes my presentation.
Thank you.
