Do the advantages of a higher retirement age outweigh the disadvantages?

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As people live longer and birth rates fall, several governments have pushed the retirement age past sixty-five. On balance I believe the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, though only if the policy is applied with judgement. The central advantage is arithmetic. Pensions are funded by people currently working, and when the ratio of workers to retirees falls, the system either raises contributions, cuts payments or extends working life. Extending working life is the least painful of the three, and it keeps experienced staff in professions such as teaching and medicine where shortages are severe. Many people also value the structure and status that work provides, and retirement can be surprisingly hard on health. The disadvantage is that a single national age ignores unequal bodies. A tax adviser at sixty-seven is inconvenienced; a bricklayer or a nurse who lifts patients may be physically finished. Since manual workers also tend to die earlier, a uniform increase quietly takes the most from those who paid in longest and will collect least. The answer is not to abandon the reform but to shape it: earlier access for physically demanding occupations, part-time transitions rather than a single cliff edge, and retraining for older workers whose bodies have outlasted their trade. In conclusion, a higher retirement age is a defensible response to demographic reality, and its fairness depends entirely on the exceptions built into it.