US Has Third of Workforce That Is Elderly

The article, from MSN, reports that the Center of Budget Policy Priorities, an lobbying and advocacy organization, has released a report showing that almost 30% of the workforce is 65 to 69 years old.  The information itself was collected from the OECD, so it as reliable as anything can be when it comes from a large organization.  There are a number of observations and issues that can be taken from this chart. First my observations:

1. The Japanese and South Koreans are as work obsessed as we make them out to be; not all stereotypes are wrong.
2. The Anglosphere nations, particularly the overseas Anglosphere nations, have an elderly population that is predisposed towards working.
3. Even with unemployment and budget woes besetting Europe, many of the European nations have elderly who are are not predisposed towards working.

Now the issues:

1. The fact that almost 29.9% of Americans who would ordinarily be retired are working illustrates that retirement as we know it is disappearing.
2. That the Europeans are in a whole mess of trouble.  The problem of high youth unemployment, while relatively new in the United States, has been a known problem for quiet some time for many European nations.  The fact that Europe is experiencing high youth unemployment, yet seeing low levels of elderly employment indicates that the number of actual jobs in Europe are slowly decreasing.  I remember reading an article many years ago that France, after you had factored in individuals leaving the work force, hadn't added new jobs since the 1970's; though my memory of that information could be mistaken.
3. That the youth of Europe are being strangled by retiree debt funded benefits at faster than the United States.

Lastly, there is one thing that needs to realize is that our modern concept of retirement is a new phenomena. Prior to the 20th century, the concept of everyone retiring while still physically capable of work only existed for the upper class. Even in the middle class it wasn't uncommon for individuals to work until they were to feeble to do so, after which they would live with their most financially well off children.  This trend could be that global society is returning to what has been the norm since time immemorial.  The major problem today being that the are far more parents than there are children, yet enough grandchildren to make extending the careers of our elderly problematic for the way our economy and society is currently organized.