Baby Boomers 'can't retire at 65', must keep working longer, says Ageing Minister Mark Butler Dr Henry Newland, 66, takes time out to row on the River Torrens after signing on for another three years as head of the Ophthalmology Network in Adelaide. TELL US: Is this generation of older people being ripped off? AUSTRALIANS need to keep working rather than retire at 65 because Baby Boomers reaching the pension age are intensifying pressure on the nation's finances, Ageing Minister Mark Butler says. As the pension bill rockets from $16 billion in 2001 to $48 billion in 2016, Mr Butler has called for a "national conversation" on the opportunities and benefits of increased life expectancy while managing the cost of pensions, health and aged care. "This is the healthiest, wealthiest, best-educated generation of retirees in human history," he told The Advertiser. We need people to stay on and work longer ... The demographic balance of people coming into the workforce versus people reaching that age in their 60s, where traditionally they would have left work, is shifting. We need more people to stay in work to keep our levels of economic activity up. People are healthy enough to do that, more than their parents' and grandparents' generations. Council on the Ageing chief executive Ian Yates backed the call, saying the "cultural mythology" of workers and employers mutually agreeing to a retirement in the 60s should be abandoned. "The employee doesn't realise what they are giving up, and the employer doesn't realise what they are going to miss as that experienced worker walks out the door," Mr Yates said. For some people, there are financial reasons to stay working. Many who take early retirement don't realise they won't have a comfortable lifestyle for another 40 years. For others, it is a case of them being healthy and active, they want to stay engaged. But we will need more flexibility in how work is structured. The over-65 age bracket is now growing by about 130,000 people a year as the first of the post-war babies reach this age, compared with an annual growth of about 50,000 in the past 20 years. It will stay near these levels for the next 40 years, fundamentally changing the worker-to-pensioner ratio. Mr Butler cited his own life experience to show the dramatic impact of the fast-changing demographic. When I was born in 1970, there were about seven-and-a-half Australians of working age for every one over 65. Today there are about five," he said. If I make it to 80 in 2050, there will be two-and-a-half. Mr Butler said ageing presented huge benefits and opportunities, provided the community viewed older people with respect, rather than seeing them as a financial burden. "A big challenge for us is that a lot of this is presented as the problem of ageing, the burden of ageing," he said. But the bigger challenge is that we have added 25 years of life expectancy in Australia in the past century. We have to make sure those additional 25 years are good years, that they are healthy, active years where people remain connected to their communities and their families and feel secure, financially and physically. We can enact things like anti-discrimination laws but ultimately it is a conversation the community has to have about rediscovering respect for age. The number of older people working was on the rise in the decade to 2011 - the number of workers in their sixties more than doubled to 876,000, and the number of workers aged over 65 is up 40 per cent since the global financial crisis hit retirement savings. Mr Butler noted the massive social and financial challenges looming as the Boomer bulge hits pension age, such as "sandwich women." For the first time in history, we are going to have two generations in retirement at the same time. As Boomers are retiring, a significant number of their parents are still alive. We have never had this dynamic before," he said. We are finding people, particularly women, end up with `sandwich' care responsibility - they are sandwiched between caring for their children and for their ageing parents. This generation is very pressed financially and for time as a result. In urging the nation to discuss the issue, Mr Butler said some of the economic problems of Japan and Europe were due to the fact that they had not addressed the issue. He said about a quarter of Japan's population was aged 65 or older. They had a very low birth rate and negligible immigration, resulting in a shrinking workforce. Government efforts to deal with the Boomer bulge include a big pension increase in 2009, raising the pension age, means-testing the private health rebate, increasing the compulsory superannuation contribution and creating the position of Age Discrimination Commissioner.