After the 2010 act, the state pension age was planned to rise to 67, meaning that more older people are staying in the workforce. Those aged over 65 and recorded as “economically active” surged from around 900,000 to 1.5 million in a decade. Still just 12% of over-65s were at work in 2023, but the idea of Britons becoming useless at 60 was increasingly unreal. With a declining birth rate and a shortage of experienced labour during the same period – notably in welfare and hospitality services – an idle resource simply had to come to the aid of the economy.