> This is part of a broader problem in society with baby boomers not retiring or stepping aside for the next generation as has always happened before and it has broken many systems.
-1. If a 60-year-old is doing good, productive work, enjoys it, and wishes to continue it, why should he or she retire?
Your argument, at least in the broader sense, seems to rely on the fallacy that there are a fixed number of jobs, and an older worker who chooses to continue working is "taking the place" of someone younger.
In more restricted contexts, such as academia, this is more or less true, and the tenure system does allow for older professors to stop pulling their weight if they choose. (Most of them don't do so.)
But are you prepared to demand of older, productive workers that they quit simply because you would like to take their place? I find such a sentiment to be profoundly selfish.
I didn't say they should. You're raising a straw man. I merely said this is the traditional structure on which our society has been working and it is now broken and having all sorts of repercussions.
To your other point there absolutely are only a small number of academic jobs in relation to population size. You can't have society made up of academics. Or any jobs which require a pyramid of supporting jobs to find them and make them viable.
For generations there was a steady transition of senior roles to you get generations at a pretty regular pace. For a number of reasons this hasn't happened with the transition from the baby boomers. This has led to a bunch of problems. A backlog if talent with no career progression opportunities. Because younger generations haven't had the positions of seniority open to the same degree they haven't learned progressively how to manage that transition either. This means that when the transitions do happen people will be moving into roles both older and less well prepared. It's a big problem in all aspects of the public sector in particular.
-1. If a 60-year-old is doing good, productive work, enjoys it, and wishes to continue it, why should he or she retire?
Your argument, at least in the broader sense, seems to rely on the fallacy that there are a fixed number of jobs, and an older worker who chooses to continue working is "taking the place" of someone younger.
In more restricted contexts, such as academia, this is more or less true, and the tenure system does allow for older professors to stop pulling their weight if they choose. (Most of them don't do so.)
But are you prepared to demand of older, productive workers that they quit simply because you would like to take their place? I find such a sentiment to be profoundly selfish.