Nikita Malik is the Head of Work and Opportunity at the Centre for Social Justice.
After a long working life, most people look forward to a well-earned retirement. Yet across Britain, millions in their 50s and 60s are being edged out of work rather than choosing to leave it behind.
New analysis by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), shows that the number of people aged 50-64 on out‑of‑work benefits with no work requirements has climbed to a record 2.15 million. In 2019, this group made up 9 percent of the age cohort; by 2025, that share had surged to 16 percent.
Early evidence from focus groups we have conducted across the country suggests many older people want to stay in work. But they face avoidable obstacles: inflexible hours, difficulties juggling care, and outdated assumptions about age and productivity.
Participants have described having a good job as a “lifeline”: not just an income, but a source of routine, social connection, and pride.
To understand what’s driving this trend, the CSJ’s Beyond Midlife Commission has identified three main barriers: a labour market ill-suited to longer working lives, growing health challenges, and cultural anxieties about age in the workplace. Health conditions, both physical and mental, often push people out early or stop them returning. Age bias from employers (and sometimes self‑stigma among workers) compounds the problem.
These pressures reach people beyond the office or factory floor. They affect the term‑time teaching assistant, the part‑time receptionist, and the care worker juggling work with family needs.
Take Hillary, a 65‑year‑old grandmother we met through one of our partner charities. “I’d still be happy to work,” she told us. “But when you’re looking, it’s like walking into a horror film. You apply and get nowhere. I’m not asking for a dream job – just a sustainable one.” Her story is typical of older women who want work but cannot find it.
Looking ahead, addressing health challenges should be a priority. Reforming fit note policies would help – rightly an area of interest to Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Helen Whately – where over 90 percent currently result in people being signed off entirely. Responsibility should shift from overstretched GPs to a dedicated Work and Health Service with a duty to treat employment as part of recovery.
GPs also need better guidance on menopause and HRT therapies, ensuring people are supported rather than written off. And for mild anxiety and depression, help should focus on recovery and activity, with the NHS itself recognising that work is therapeutic.
Social prescribing could play a key role, encouraging physical and social activity instead of a permanent withdrawal from work.
We should also make the financial system work for older employees. National Insurance rises on part‑time roles remove an important stepping stone to return to work. And few people realise that working past state pension age means no NI contributions at all, which acts as a natural incentive to stay in work.
Why not bring this relief forward, offering tax breaks to those continuing beyond the typical exit age? With similar schemes already used to encourage employers to hire young people not in education, employment, or training, a targeted incentive for older workers could make a real difference – with significant benefits to economic activity and the benefits bill.
If we start viewing midlife as a time of renewed possibility instead of decline, we can redesign work around longer lives, caring responsibilities, and changing health needs.
Get that right, and the Government’s 80 percent employment target stops being a slogan and starts becoming reality.