Report comment

The discussion of forced retirement rankles me as well. I'm in my late 50s, am regarded (I think) as a leader in my field, and am at the most productive point ever in my career. I hope to work at least another 10 years, maybe 15 (my wife will have a say!). Regardless, a few years ago here in the States the mandatory retirement age was done away with. But, since the time a was a young academic, numerous funding opportunities have been brought into being to support younger researchers. I applaud that. But that wasn't the case when I was a young academic, and it took years before I got my first meaningful funding. Now we may be facing having to retire early to make more room for those same folks? I feel like I'm stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea! To me, forcing retirements on the basis of age is a non-starter. If you want to put in a performance metric, fine. But something arbitrary (i.e., age) over which I have no control? No way!