THE Conversation — When do you think you’ll retire? Aged 65? Younger, if you’re lucky? Maybe older if you’re unlucky — or if you’re young right now?

Someone from a high-income country starting their first job can expect to retire on average two years later than today’s pensioners. And in some countries the retirement age will be much higher. Denmark, for example, is planning on raising its pension age to 74 by 2070.

Yet despite all the changes over the last 70 years in society, job markets, educational systems and retirement policies and trends, the working age as defined by the wealthy countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is still 15 to 64.

Having a defined working age helps individuals planning their retirement as well as governments making spending plans. But it’s puzzling that this age bracket remains the standard measure.

After all, a large number of people outside this age range continue to contribute to the economy in both formal and informal ways. Even with today’s pension ages, in OECD countries an average of 23 per cent of people aged 65-69 are still working.

This highlights why focusing solely on chronological age when talking about working life is a problem. As the pension age rises, the working age concept as we know it today will become increasingly irrelevant. Societies need a more innovative and dynamic approach.

One alternative used in some countries is the idea of a functional age, a measure of certain physical and mental capabilities. But this is only applied to a handful of jobs such as pilots, firefighters and police where specific abilities like eyesight, fitness, brain age and decision-making are emphasised.

Making functional age the mainstream measure isn’t necessarily the way forward, but it does show that alternative thinking is possible.

My research shows that other metrics such as people’s cognitive age, biological age, functional age and social age (self-perceptions of age and social norms of age-appropriate behaviour) also impact on their abilities to work, earn and pay. These do not always match up with a person’s chronological age.

Additionally, “typical” working-age people may not be able to earn for several reasons, including disabilities and caring responsibilities. And different groups, for example migrants, often have distinct motivations, interests and opportunities for wage work participation.

Setting most societal and economic parameters by age alone comes with explicit social and economic costs and in many ways exacerbates ageist attitudes in societies and workplaces.

For instance, older people can often be perceived as frail and less productive, while receiving more, for instance, pensions and benefits. At work, too, older people are more susceptible to redundancies and face recruitment biases. Also, employers often presume they are hard to train.

Put simply, current economic and social systems reinforce the idea that chronological age is the best measure of older people’s usefulness in society and economy.

The arbitrary nature of the system has ageism embedded within it. This prejudice is unlikely to change until the perception of older people as economic and social burdens is challenged.

Sajia Ferdous is lecturer in organisational behaviour, Queen’s Business School, Queen’s University, Belfast