Corporate report
(CSV) Average age people stop working – DWP equality information 2013 (data)
Updated 12 July 2013
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| 6. Average age of withdrawal from the labour market | ||||
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| Data source | ||||
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| Labour Force Survey | ||||
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| Time period and availability | ||||
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| Breakdowns are currently available by age, ethnicity, gender and religion or belief. | ||||
| Latest data available in July 2013 covered Quarter 1 2013 for gender, and 4 quarter | ||||
| averages (to increase data reliability for small sample size) from Quarter 2 2012 to | ||||
| Quarter 1 2013 for ethnicity and religion or belief. | ||||
| Data are produced quarterly approximately six weeks after the period referred to. | ||||
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| What does this tell us? | ||||
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| This indicator is measured using the ‘average age of withdrawal from the labour market – static indicator’. High level figures which are not broken down for equality groups are published by ONS annually in the | ||||
| Pension Trends series. | ||||
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| This indicator measures the ages at which people withdraw from the labour market and become inactive; data are not seasonally adjusted. Due to the nature of the indicator, year on year changes tend to be small | ||||
| and are not typically statistically significant. The focus should not be on the short-term changes but on the long-term trend. | ||||
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| Extending working life is an important part of the response to demographic ageing and ensuring pensions sustainability. Monitoring changes in average age of withdrawal will provide an indication of how the Department’s | ||||
| policies are encouraging longer working. | ||||
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| How will an improvement be shown? | ||||
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| An increase in the age of withdrawal from the labour market would constitute an improvement. However, economic conditions also need to be taken into account as increased financial constraints can lead to people working longer. | ||||
| There may be a number of contributing factors including changing attitudes around working longer among individuals and employers; private pension incentives; and the effect of state pension age changes. | ||||
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| Links to other information that you may find useful | ||||
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| Further information on the labour market and retirement is available in the ONS report on Pension Trends, available at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pensions/pension-trends/chapter-4--labour-market---retirement/index.html. | ||||
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| [1] The 2011 Equality Information Report contained a breakdown for disabled people versus non-disabled people (Table 6.1). From the 2012 report onwards we have dropped this table. Our investigations into the data quality have identified | ||||
| that the methodology used does not support a breakdown by disability status as the prevalence of disability in the population increases with age, and an individual becoming disabled is associated with withdrawal | ||||
| from the labour market, meaning that the calculation is biased. A more detailed note explaining the calculation of the “static” exit age indicator is available at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pensions/average-age-of-withdrawal-from-the-labour-market/2010/index.html | ||||
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| [2] In previous editions of the Equalities report we have published more detailed breakdowns of ethnicity and religion. | ||||
| However, work has recently been carried out to understand the impact of sample size on data validity and, the data | ||||
| have been found to be extremely sensitive to small sample sizes, and can become biased. | ||||
| We have decided to publish breakdowns only if the unweighted sample size from four quarters of LFS data is around 3,000 or greater. | ||||
| We have therefore further combined some of the smaller ethnic or religious groupings resulting in more robust estimates, but this does | ||||
| mean that we are unable to detect what may be real differences in average exit age between some of the smaller groups. | ||||
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| Table 6.1: Average age of withdrawal from the labour market by ethnicity and gender, UK, annual average to Quarter 1 of each year (April to March) | ||||
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| Ethnic group of individual | Q2 2011 - Q1 2012 | Not set | Q2 2012 - Q1 2013 | Not set |
| Not set | Men | Women | Men | Women |
| White | 64.5 | 62.6 | 64.8 | 62.8 |
| Non-White | 64.7 | 60.4 | 64 | 61.8 |
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| The only group for whom year-on-year changes can be compared is white people - which has shown a small increase of 0.3 years for both men and women. | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
| The sample size for non-white groups is insufficient to detect small year-on-year changes. | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
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| Source: LFS | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
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| Notes: | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
| 1. Data are rounded to the nearest 0.1 years | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
| 2. Data are subject to sampling variation and is not seasonally adjusted. Breakdowns with an unweighted sample size of less than 3,000 are not shown as sampling variation is very high, and a small sample can bias the results | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
| 3. Accuracy of data is limited due to small sample size | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
| 4. Ethnicity is self-reported | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
| 5. Due to the complicated methodology involved for this indicator, statistical significance cannot be reliably estimated unless sample sizes are exceptionally high. For this reason, information on statistical significance has not been provided for this indicator. | Not set | Not set | Not set | |
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| Table 6.2: Average age of withdrawal from the labour market by gender, UK, Quarter 1 of each year (January to March) | Not set | Not set | Not set | |
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| Age of withdrawal from labour market | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | |
| Men | 64.5 | 64.6 | 64.7 | |
| Women | 62.8 | 62.4 | 63 | |
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| There has been a small increase of 0.2 years for men and a larger statitically significant one of 0.6 years for women since last year. This means that the gender gap has narrowed down by 0.4 years from last year. | Not set | Not set | Not set | |
| This is consistent with evidence that the increase in Women's State Pension age, which is increasing from 60 in 2010 to 65 in 2018, | Not set | Not set | Not set | |
| has led to more older women in the workforce - and hence higher retirement ages. A recent publication by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (Incentives, shocks or signals: labour supply effects of increasing the female state | Not set | Not set | Not set | |
| pension age in the UK - Mar 2013 http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/6622), has studied this in more detail. | Not set | Not set | Not set | |
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| Source: LFS | Not set | Not set | Not set | |
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| Notes: | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
| 1. Data are rounded to the nearest 0.1 years | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
| 2. Data are subject to sampling variation and is not seasonally adjusted. Breakdowns with an unweighted sample size of less than 3,000 are not shown as sampling variation is very high, and a small sample can bias the results | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
| 3. Accuracy of data is limited due to small sample size | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
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| Table 6.3: Average age of withdrawal from the labour market by gender and religion or belief, GB, annual average to Quarter 1 of each year (April to March) | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
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| Religion | Q2 2011 - Q1 2012 | Not set | Q2 2012 - Q1 2013 | Not set |
| Not set | Men | Women | Men | Women |
| No religion | 64.6 | 63.1 | 64.7 | 62.9 |
| Christian | 64.4 | 62.4 | 64.8 | 62.7 |
| Any other religion ( inc Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Sikh, Muslim, Others) | 65.5 | 62.5 | 64.4 | 62.9 |
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| Christian (the largest group) has shown a small increase of 0.4 for men and 0.3 for women since last year. | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
| The sample size for 'no religion' and any other religion group are insufficient to detect small year-on-year changes. | Not set | Not set | Not set | Not set |
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| Source: LFS | ||||
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| Notes: | ||||
| 1. Data are rounded to the nearest 0.1 years | ||||
| 2. Data are subject to sampling variation and is not seasonally adjusted. Breakdowns with an unweighted sample size of less than 3,000 are not shown as sampling variation is very high, and a small sample can bias the results | ||||
| 3. Accuracy of data is limited due to small sample size | ||||
| 4. Data covers Great Britain only | ||||
| 5. Religion or Belief is self reported | ||||
| 6. Due to the complicated methodology involved for this indicator, statistical significance cannot be reliably estimated unless sample sizes are exceptionally high. For this reason, information on statistical significance has not been provided for this indicator. |