Age 60 Rule

[kateharvey]

I have to do an assignment on the Age 60 Rule and i was hoping that someone could help me out. Basically i want to know why and how they chose 60 as the retirement age and whether or not there is any medical evidence to back it up.
also attitudes towards the rule would be great especially if it has effected you personally. Should it be changed and if so what criteria should they use.
Thanks very much.

[ATPMBA]

I heard a rumor that in the U.S., the age 60 rule was lobbied for by the head of an unnamed major AMERICAN AIRLINE years ago. He wanted to save money by retiring older pilots who were making more money than new hires by virtue of their years of service. The time period was around the 1950's, Social Security had a retirement age of 65, so 5 years less was a good number to use.

As far as I know there isn't any medical data to back up the age 60 rule. Life expectancy for men was only 47 at 1900 and now is about 74 years plus, so in the 1950's it was somewhere between the two numbers and it was an easier sell to the general public.

I have somewhat of an insurance/pensions background. Perhaps you can look at mortality tables. These are tables used by actuaries that cover the general public and show the number of living (Lx's) and deaths (Dx's) per year starting out with 1 million people, from age 1 -100. A major table was done in 1950 and another one in 1980. I dare to say the 1980's table has a greater number of people living into old age.

[BlueEagle]

Kate - This subject has been discussed a lot on PPRuNe, suggest you use the search function of this BB, use 'age sixty rule' to start your search and see what you get.

Cheers.