ABSTRACT
The nation chose to sideline its older population just at the time when improved diets and successful health, sanitation, and education programs had contributed to the development of an increasingly fit and skilled older population. A national strategy to foster greater job opportunities for older people will reduce the demands on retirement income systems and aid the economy in another long-term and expanding way. The retirement strategy was so successful in removing older people from the work force that, until just recently, government employment research agencies and work force analysts spent very little time on assessing the implications of longer work lives. The projected Social Security deficits and the expected financial difficulties of many pension systems are not going to be resolved by the proposed jobs strategy. Implementation during the 1980s of a jobs strategy designed to open up or keep open the numbers of jobs proposed would be a vast undertaking.
