Because arguably it reduces demand for the next generation to do their thing. And if too many do it then it also becomes a necessity for more in the same age cohort to afford housing and transportation.
Not suggesting people go off and die, or be thrown off a cliff. Rather that they consider there are some downsides to society at large if they unnecessarily work late in life. FWIW, I was responding to the question "why not? [keep working]".
The available data[1] suggest that society at large benefits from increased productivity regardless of whether the individuals driving that productivity are 65 or 25. Fortunately, we live in a positive-sum economy where working harder and longer not only grants you a bigger slice of the pie, it increases the size of the entire pie itself.
Be careful extrapolating macro scale effects into the micro scale. GDP is a function of a huge number of things and its correlation with positive outcomes doesn’t mean everything that boosts GDP is a net positive. Many forms of economic inefficiency end up boosting GDP.
Older people helping to make more products/services is a downside to society at large?
I would understand if “working” was a competition for limited resources. But if it is, in fact, a value generating activity, how does it harm society at large?
e.g. Having more doctors work until later, if they are capable, is not a net positive for our society’s ability to provide healthcare?
Some demand for workers scales well, virtually unlimited. Yet many are not. And as tech quickly takes more and more jobs, older workers contribute to the competition for shrinking demand for human labor.
Now advances in tech may continue to increase demand for workers elsewhere, once training and workers catch up. Or maybe not as much as roles are lost.
> older workers contribute to the competition for shrinking demand for human labor.
Posted a similar request elsewhere, but I think you need to substantiate this claim.
Furthermore, if you're claiming that tech destroys jobs in the general economy, then the consistent position would be that young or old should stop working in tech, not just older people. But the research I've seen shows that tech jobs generate non-tech jobs on net.
So what if demand scales differently. Should foreigners go back home to leave jobs to nationals? Should women stay home to leave jobs for men? Unless you answer yes to those, why would you choose another arbitrary category like age to do the same?
I hope you're never old with people around you that think the same as you think now. Either you can do the job or not.
I didn't choose the category, the question was why not work late in life. I proposed one likely downside.
As to immigration and women and others, it can be argued the end game of every able bodied adult working until death is quite dark -- even if it begins with most of them finding some enjoyment in it.
When I'm old I hope my family encourages me to find joy and meaning outside employment, once the finances have been secured for retirement.
I think your world model is a bit off here. Each tech job creates multiple non-tech jobs on average (1.5-2 in the bay area, last I checked). It's true we're coming out of a mini-recession in tech, but in general over the past 10 years there have been way more job openings than workers.
Someone experienced continuing to work in tech is a net benefit to society; they contribute way above median taxes and their economic activity generates jobs. It's not zero-sum; the more people working in tech as senior engineers, the richer society gets.
The only case I think you could actually point to net downsides is that within tech, it's possibly easier for a more junior to get a job replacing a more senior when the latter retires, from reduction of competition. So from a selfish perspective of "I want your job" sure it makes your life easier if a senior engineer retires.
I'll put a [citation needed] on your claims around downsides to society and leave it at that. Judging by the downvotes it seems others don't agree with you either; if you want to persuade people I think you need to provide some concrete evidence.
Given the demographic situation nearly everywhere in the world, there’ll be no shortage of work for the young, and a pronounced need for the old to keep working.
Now you're questioning if human nature and pursuit of "better" can be changed. That's like asking "can't we all get along" and get rid of police and armies, which obviously doesn't work.
"Stepping aside" makes sense if you are in a singular position, like the CEO of a company.
Most positions are not like that. Even though tenured positions in a university is a finite resource, having a highly productive professor on such a position is beneficial, no matter the age. The problem here is in they way science is financed, not in the glut of Nobel laureates refusing to leave.
It does, however, create a pipelining problem: there's very little reason for someone who wants to become a professor to stick through literal decades of adjunct hell to maybe get a tenure-track position when somebody decides they're finally ready to let go of theirs (and the paycheck that comes with it, which is not large but certainly incentivizes staying a long time).
Tenure is a great and necessary phenomenon, but it is one of the best examples of the folks who get it needing to be more broad-minded than themselves.
