• Working until 64 to benefit from a full pension is what the government's pension reform plan provides.

  • But in practice, a few years from the end of your career, providing the same work, working the same hours and having the same productivity as when you were 30 can become more complicated.

  • So, should we think about adapting workstations or adapting working time?

    Do devices already exist?

Will you have to work longer?

This is what the government's pension reform plan provides, which wants to raise the legal retirement age to 64.

A text which is not unanimous and which, after a first day of massive mobilization on January 19, will give rise to new demonstrations on January 31.

But in practice, if the law passed, how to hold out until age 64 when bodies are already beginning to tire and performing daily work is more and more demanding?

How to support, or even adapt, the work of seniors as they approach retirement?

Adapt workstations and promote training

“There are professional activities that wear out the body, plants Dr. Jérôme Marty, general practitioner and president of the French Union for Free Medicine (UFML).

What is needed is to think of age in terms of adaptation of positions, not to consider that one can exercise one's work in the same way at 25, 45 or 65 years old.

We cannot ask a nurse's aide who carries her patients all day and has her back broken after a few years of exercise, to work in the same conditions until she is 64, insists the doctor.

If we do not adapt the positions of these employees who reach an age where work tires them, it is a dead end”.

Thus, “if we want a senior to be able to stay in employment for a long time, he must have the skills to exercise the profession that the company needs today and will need tomorrow, estimates Françoise Kleinbauer, CEO of France Retraite. , an expert organization in the support and management of career endings.

One of the keys is to promote lifelong learning.

In many professions, like a teacher, a caregiver or a worker, it can be complicated after 60 years, to ensure its activity under the same conditions as at 30 years.

Why not anticipate and allow another end-of-career trajectory?

But this development cannot result from the pension reform alone.

In practice, “The adaptation of positions according to age should also be the responsibility of occupational medicine, but the problem is that it has been dismantled, laments Dr. Marty.

The government wants to force this reform through without having thought about all the ins and outs, why such an urgency?

“For the doctor, “we cannot base a pension reform on a cold analysis of the figures.

It must be built with many actors, sociologists, specialists in gerontology [the aging of the population].

“However, “it is important to respect the course, the needs and the reality of health of each one, abounds Dr. Christophe de Jaeger, physiologist doctor specialist in aging, president of the French Society of medicine and physiology of longevity.

The problem,

Gradual retirement and reduction of weekly working time

Taking this physiological reality into account can involve “a reduction in expected performance and weekly working time, as part of a reorganization of work left to the discretion of the company”, suggests Dr. de Jaeger.

“Part-time work at the end of their career is the path that France Retraite advises companies to favor in order to encourage the retention of seniors in employment, indicates Françoise Kleinbauer.

All the stakeholders agree in recognizing that it is often impossible to continue working under the same conditions at 60 as at 30. on sick leave”.

And in this field, it is progressive retirement that holds its own. In practice, "it is accessible two years before the legal retirement age, to people who have contributed 150 quarters, and allows a period of work between 40 and 80%, ”explains the CEO of France Retraite.

A still confidential device, since less than 30,000 people benefit from it to date, “while it is a virtuous solution for everyone, she insists.

For the employee, because he reduces his activity without being penalized financially: he receives additional income from the pension funds which is added to his remuneration for his activity.

Concretely, if he works at 80%, he receives 20% of his pension, while continuing to contribute and acquire rights.

And when he liquidates his retirement, his pension will be recalculated for him on the basis of his entire career: the pension amounts already received are not deducted, as many employees believe.

And for the company, this device makes it possible to have a senior retained in employment, while reducing its payroll”.

“A job-retirement transition”

A device which also has the advantage “of organizing a transition from employment to retirement, very often poorly anticipated in companies, adds Françoise Kleinbauer.

Many of the seniors that we support in preparing for this transition tell us that they are not sufficiently prepared for the radical change that the transition from working to retiring engenders overnight”.

Moreover, "many seniors develop health problems as soon as they retire", confirms Dr. de Jaeger.

In this context, “gradual retirement represents a societal and health issue”, believes Françoise Kleinbauer.

Among the other avenues, “we also present skills sponsorship to companies,” she continues.

A device that allows seniors in particular to spend time in an organization outside the company, within an association.

In practice, the company finances the person's salary in full and also benefits from a tax deduction.

Like gradual retirement, this system allows the employee to no longer be full-time in the company while promoting valuable skills transfers”.

However, "if for some, maintaining employment is too complicated, it is also necessary to know how to offer retirement before the legal age", press Dr. de Jaeger.

Already existing, “retirement for incapacity remains accessible from the age of 62, notes Françoise Kleinbauer, and is maintained in the bill under the same conditions”.

Politics

Pension reform: Macron says Parliament can "adjust" the reform but wants to "move forward"

Health

Pension reform: What is the life expectancy in good health today at 64?

  • Health

  • Pension reform 2023

  • Retreat

  • Job

  • Difficulty

  • salary