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Details here. How will this affect the universities? Will there be exceptions? More information and links welcome in the comments.
Oxford—and I assume other universities—is currently exploring whether it can implement an 'employer justified retirement age' (http://www.ox.ac.uk/staff/staff_communications/update_on_major_issues/index.html). This would allow compulsory retirement at a certain age 'provided that the retirement age can be objectively justified, which means that it is a proportionate response to a legitimate aim' (http://www.acas.org.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=2976). I don't know whether this will eventually become university policy, or whether, if it does, it will withstand the inevitable legal challenge. My non-expert view is that given the nature of the work, and the fact that the US seems to manage succession planning and provide at least some jobs for younger academics without a mandatory retirement age, it will be tricky for universities to argue that mandatory retirement is proportionate.
In a consultative paper released in May of this year, Cambridge floated a proposal similar to the one under consideration at Oxford. In a University Discussion a couple of weeks later, I commented at length on the University's effort to pretend that Parliament hasn't really eliminated the mandatory retirement age. My comments can be found at pp 866-68 in the following issue of the Cambridge Reporter:
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2010-11/weekly/6226/6226.pdf
The first two comments surprised me. In York, we just received a message from the head of HR saying 'I am writing to advise you that, in line with the Equality Act 2010, with effect from 1 October 2011 the University will no longer operate a compulsory retirement age. From that date you will not be expected to retire on reaching a certain age and will therefore be required to give notice of your intention to retire in line with your contractual notice provisions. If you are considering retirement, it would be helpful to discuss your intentions with your line manager at an early stage'. In the FAQ, it goes on to say 'The default expectation will be that individuals will have the right to continue working until they notify the institution of their request to retire'. The attitude all seemed rather positive.
Thanks for the information about York, Paul. I'm glad that at least one of the UK's leading universities is adjusting gracefully and straightforwardly to the new regime. I'm confident that Cambridge will ultimately comply with the 2010 Equality Act, either because it will be bludgeoned into doing so through litigation or because the administrators here will recognize (even without litigation) that the arguments against their position are overwhelming. Nonetheless, it's regrettable that the initial response to the elimination of the mandatory retirement age was so shabby and grudging here. Kudos to York for its far more positive approach.
Mandatory retirement is an egalitarian policy and its elimination an antiegalitarian one. Without mandatory retirement the average academic career will last longer, which means there will be fewer new jobs every year and fewer opportunities for young academic job-seekers.
The elimination of mandatory retirement benefits those who are already fortunate enough to have academic careers, because they get to stay in them longer. And its entire cost falls on that group of young would-be academics who would have got the extra jobs there would have been with mandatory retirement but who get no jobs without it. It's a classic case of the rich getting richer …
Young philosophers facing an already dismal job market should be screaming.
@Tom Hurka:
I feel genuine sympathy with your perspective. I do think those who can retire – without condemning themselves to poverty or burdening their children with the care of their parents – have a basic obligation to do so. (I say this on the assumption that institutions support their retired faculty through copying services, library privileges, and such.)
However, I think your comment about “the rich getting richer” is off the mark. Perhaps there are some philosophers who are ‘rich,’ at the end of their academic careers. The vast majority are not. And, in the current economic mess, many people who expected to retire at 65 have found their retirement funds drastically depleted.
Also, some of us started the business of having children ‘late’ in life and, so, have always expected to have to work beyond the magic age of 65 [or whatever the magic age is]. I believe this is particularly the case for many women philosophers of the generation that might now be looking forward to retirement.
I do not think that the composite problem of (a) young people who need, and deserve, academic positions and (b) older people who have, can be effective in, and need to continue being employed is an easy one. To suggest that older philosophers just ought to retire, with no consideration of the varied situations in which those people find themselves, strikes me as ill-considered.
Indeed, I wonder if philosophers, of all people, ought not to be confronting the systemic conditions that appear to present a dichotomy of the younger and older, rather than opting for ‘sides.’
@ C. Sistare:
By "rich" I didn't mean rich in the economic sense. I meant more-favoured, in that these are people who've already had the satisfactions, as I assume they are, of an academic career, as opposed to those who will, after the reduction in the number of new positions, never have one.
I understand that some US universities have the policy of de-tenuring faculty at age 70. This is not a bad compromise, since the deadwood can be shown the door at 70, but still-productive scholars can be retained in post on a year-to-year basis.
I address a variant of Tom Hurka's worry in my Cambridge Reporter remarks. His worry might well be troubling if the data from the USA suggested that large numbers of academics are remaining in their posts for lengthy periods past the previously mandatory retirement age. However, although I don't have figures specifically for philosophers, the data across all disciplines indicate that no such troubling development has been occurring. At nearly every university, the proportion of academics on duty past the previously mandatory retirement age is very small.
In any case, even if the data were more worrisome, a mandatory retirement age is not what Tom should be advocating. His specific concern would be met more exactly by a ceiling on the number of years that can be served by any academic. Moreover, if his general concern is unfairness due to the paucity of entry-level jobs for academics, he would be best advised to advocate reductions in the remuneration for holders of academic positions. If the reductions were tied to commensurate increases in the funding for new positions, the opening up of entry-level slots would greatly exceed what can be achieved through a mandatory retirement age — and it would not involve any invidious discrimination.
@Tom Hurka:
Thanks; I did not understand.
Nonetheless, I think that the economic considerations are important. I would love to be able to retire at 65, but I have a child who will still be in college then, and my retirement monies have .. well.., been discounted. The odd thing is that, at this juncture in our national history, those who might consider themselves close to a normal retirement age are least able to retire in the short-term future. Our savings have decreased, our healthcare costs are already terrifying and our prospects – as older folks – only portend more such costs, and our young-adult children cannot support themselves.
And, while I agree with Matthew Kramer’s suggestion of a cap on salary, I still think we ought to be talking about solutions that neither pit the younger academics against the older ones nor rely on limiting the earnings of academics.
I do not encounter calls for older administrators to retire to open up positions for younger ones. I do not encounter suggestions that administrators’ salaries be capped so that new, younger, ones can be brought on at less cost.
I am dismayed to see, in so many outlets, the notion that suffering should be spread to others, rather than that suffering should be minimized for all.
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