Mandatory Retirement: the case against

This article is part of our Prof v. Prof summer debate series, where academics take opposing viewpoints on hot topics in higher education. Read all the articles from the series here. 

The seventh episode of season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, entitled Once More with Feeling, has the titular character singing the song Where Do We Go from Here? 

Where do we go from here? 

Where do we go from here? 

The battle’s done, and we kinda won, 

So we sound our victory cheer. 

Where do we go from here? 

A similar lived experience can be felt by those who retire. Even when one’s employment life comes to a successful end, what remains is an abyss, a void waiting to be filled. For those with an occupation that is considered a job, it may be a welcome end that begins a world of leisure. For others, including academics, employment is a vocation, intricately entwined with one’s identity, and the question, “Where do I go from here?” is a real one. 

While retirement itself can be difficult, mandatory retirement exacerbates this. Being forced into retirement is, I would argue, a form of systemic violence inflicted on someone who is not yet done. It is an arbitrary finish line with one fixed criterion — age — that does not take in other variables. 

Not all academic career paths are the same. Some start later in life, as in the case of the groundbreaking Métis historian Olive Dickason. Dr. Dickason was 57 when she started her academic career at the University of Alberta, after working for decades as a journalist and raising three children. She fought a court battle against U of A’s policy of mandatory retirement at age 65, and narrowly lost her Supreme Court case in 1992.  

When U of A ended mandatory retirement in 2007, Larry Beauchamp, vice-president of human resources told CBC News: “It’s certainly going to make it attractive for those that want to stay here… We’re not going to have people in their early sixties looking at moving because they’ve begun research projects that they know are going to carry on for seven or eight years or are thoroughly enjoying their teaching and interaction with students.” Not only does this apply to recruitment but also to retention. Synthesizing Beauchamp’s comment: Who wants to work with an expiry date? Not all career paths are linear, and, for some, forced retirement can also create undue financial hardship. 

While the professor emeritus role can provide some sense of direction for academics who may wish to continue in reduced teaching and research roles, regulations and collective agreements often pose obstacles. Those wishing to teach, more for the engagement than financial remuneration, often leave one union and find themselves with no seniority in another, making it difficult to obtain teaching assignments. For those wishing to continue research, much supporting infrastructure no longer exists. Access to small grants that can support open access publications and conference travel are rare, meaning such activities are only doable if one is willing and able to contribute personal funds. Before retirement, some intellectual curiosity was fed by daily encounters in hallways with colleagues and interaction with students who keep the mind actively engaged. This, too, may disappear. 

Read also: Mandatory retirement: the case in favour

Re-entry into open positions elsewhere may also prove difficult. Most retirees will be at a higher rank than other candidates and therefore more costly. The path to maintaining one’s vocare/vocation becomes strewn with a series of new obstacles. To quote another line from the song: “Why is the path unclear?” As the character Victoria, in the 2010 action-comedy film RED says, “You can’t just flip a switch and become someone else.” 

Mandatory retirement can also have other negative emotional impacts. Former Canadian news anchor Peter Mansbridge claims in an advertisement for HomeEquity Bank that it is time to “redefine retirement,” challenging clichés that characterize older adults as “over the hill,” “put out to pasture,” and “past your prime.” The ad makes explicit the existing ageist social stigma that can also impact individuals forced to retire. Does not mandatory retirement imply this? Universities have procedures to assess productivity, such as annual reviews, that are far more reliable than a set age. 

The negative impacts of mandatory retirement are felt not only by individuals but also the greater community. Society has invested a lot in developing the expertise of members of the academy, and to discard them and their amassed knowledge at a predetermined date is a waste.  

While a counter-argument could be made to make room for “new blood,” there is no guarantee that a similar or new position will exist once the person filling it has retired. Pushing professors into retirement can be used by university administrators as a cost-saving measure, and I am personally aware of colleagues who have postponed voluntary retirement during cutback times to protect positions. In my case, after my retirement during the pandemic, the entire program was erased after my departure with no continuing tenure-track positions and fewer courses for part-time instructors. Had I known this would happen, I might have delayed my retirement in order to safeguard a little-represented but valuable genre of dramatic arts. Where did we go from there? In my case, the department chose to go in a different direction. 

Ultimately, it is an issue of power. A question that one of my mentors, Ted Aoki, asked students to ask was: “Who decides?” Universities do have the responsibility to refocus; the advancement of knowledge depends on it. New scholars deserve meaningful employment and have much to contribute. At the same time, existing faculty — for the reasons above, and more — should not be easily discarded. Having a policy based on age alone makes no sense. Even when it comes to renewing a driver’s licence, age is but one factor taken into account: older seniors (in Alberta, those over 75) must renew more frequently and pass cognitive and vision tests; but their age alone does not disqualify them from driving. What might the additional factors be in making retirement decisions, and who will decide what these are? 

Why is the path unclear, 

When we know home is near. 

Understand we’ll go hand in hand, 

But we’ll walk alone in fear. 

Where do we go from here?