Obviously, for a large number of trade unionists, working two more years in their career is an unlikely idea. For some, life seems to begin at retirement, which, taken literally, sounds like a paradox. “Retreat” is a military term, the use of which foreshadows nothing good, usually defeat. Obviously, many jobs are exhausting and painful. The people who occupy them must benefit from a simpler and more extensive hardship system than the current one. Of course, many companies practice a management that demotivates, tires, sometimes depresses. Sorry to remind you: Julia de Funès and I were among the first to denounce it in 2018 in a book that caused a stir at the time. Nevertheless: to work is to participate in the collective work of building the world. It also means participating in the collective prosperity of the country.
It is curious that the government and the majority do not put this argument more forward. Indeed, there are two aspects that make pension reform desirable. The first is financial. In all the scenarios of the Pensions Guidance Council, from the most pessimistic to the most optimistic, the general system is, in the more or less long term, in deficit. We have to settle that.
The second is macroeconomic. France absolutely needs solid growth to finance our collective needs. Getting more people to work and working longer is one of the ways (along with productivity gains) to increase the rate of growth of national income. However, this surplus income is essential: to increase the defense effort, to finance health and autonomy, to recruit teachers and pay them better, to provide justice, to finance decarbonization… If we do not strengthen our global work effort, the collapse of our public services will end and we will not be able to protect ourselves as we should, just when a hostile power oversteps its borders and threatens us.
A training system for seniors
The essential challenge of this reform is to increase the employment rate of seniors. The figures are now well known: at the end of 2021, the employment rate stood at 35% for 60-64 year olds and fell below 20% from the age of 64. The unemployment rate for 60-64 year olds rose to 6.9% of working people in this age group. Unemployment among seniors exists, it is far from negligible, but its level is not stratospheric as we sometimes hear. On the other hand, many seniors are not active in the statistical sense (they are neither employed nor unemployed but in early retirement). It is therefore a question of putting in place a system of protection and training that allows someone who is in good health to continue working as late as they wish. We are far from it. Employers must make strong commitments in this area.
Achieving this objective would be a blessing for the country, just like what the increase in the female employment rate represented in the late 30s. In the 1960s, the female activity rate was less than 50%. At 70% today, it is almost at the level of that of men (which has meanwhile decreased since the 1930s when it was almost 100%!). In fact, the dialectic between the feminist revolution and the rise of household appliances has at least partially freed women from the grip of patriarchy (and yes, work can be a liberation!), which has strongly contributed to our collective enrichment.
This is a point that the devaluation of work masks and of which the history of Western societies since the industrial revolution of the 20th century provides a striking illustration: in capitalist societies, employment emancipates in the sense that it makes it possible to escape from societal influences such as patriarchy or rural life, and it contributes to the satisfaction of collective needs. Seniors are already emancipated of course. But, from a macroeconomic perspective, they must be to the 2020s what women have been since the 1970s: a fantastic contributor to our prosperity.