UQ Economist John Quiggin asks: Should we retire later? On the whole, he thinks we should, for two reasons.

"First, improving productivity means that any given standard of living can be achieved with less work, and we would expect at least some of this benefit to take the form of an increase in leisure, including more years spent in retirement. Second, and going in the opposite direction, we are living longer and (because of higher education levels and increased difficulty of entry to the workforce) starting work later. So, with a fixed retirement age, the number of years out of the workforce is increasing, while the number in the workforce is decreasing. At least in the Australian context, the second of these factors is dominant."