PREPARATION FOR RETIREMENT

While the trend in Australia is towards earlier compulsory retirement, the United States Government has recently passed legislation which guarantees the rights of the elderly who wish to continue in employment to do so. This paper briefly discusses the concept of early retirement in the light of demographic trends which point to an increase in the proportion of elderly persons in the Australian population in the next few decades. Some of the needs of the elderly, as they themselves perceive them, are highlighted with special reference to a report commissioned by the Western Australian Council on the Ageing, and to a questionnaire completed by participants in the Western Australian Institute of Technology Activity Programme for the Over-60s