Ageism in Australia
By Sue Ellson
On Monday 11 August 2025, I asked Australians aged 55-70 to let me know what they were doing now via a LinkedIn Poll and 94 voters said:
1. In an aligned job or work 50%
2. Happily retired / semi-retired 13%
3. Underemployed or underpaid 20%
4. Other (add details below) 17%
I asked this question because the Australian Bureau of Statistics ‘Retirement and Retirement Intentions’ data shows that the average age at retirement is 56.9 years and the average age people intend to retire is 65.4 years.
I am super curious.
If people in this age bracket are not intending to retire until the age of 65.4:
➡️ why are 20% of them underemployed or underpaid?
➡️ why are 13% of them happily retired / semi retired?
➡️ why are 17% unable to find work or reinventing themselves?
Personally, I believe this points to:
➡️ systemic ageism in Australia
➡️ people choosing to retire rather than try and find work
➡️ some people who can manage their careers and others who can’t
➡️ overall, a shift to more people in this age group wanting to maintain some level of work or employment
What’s next?
I will be contacting the Workplace Gender Equality Agency to see if future reported gender equality data can include:
✅ the age ranges of employees
✅ the average tenure of employees by age ranges
✅ the training hours completed per year by employee age ranges
Why is this important?
Because I suspect:
➡️ organisations may not have a broad age mix in their workforce
➡️ that an average or median age below 45 proves ageism
➡️ that any high average age enterprises are not planning for succession
➡️ whilst education is effective, sometimes only regulation changes what happens
What can you do now?
Please contact me directly to help raise this issue more broadly…
#ageism #retirement #underemployed #sueellson
Other Resources
My Happy Money Journey podcast with Phoebe Blamey – Women over 55 in Australia take, on average, 20 months to find new work more than double the time of younger candidates. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s3-e37-laid-off-but-lifted-up-designing-your-next-and/id1683704140?i=1000721626607
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