What France’s rise in older-worker employment tells us about the future of work

France has reached an important milestone in the changing relationship between age and employment. Figures released at the end of July showed that the employment rate among people aged 60-64 had risen to 44.4 per cent in 2025, its highest level for around 50 years. The rate increased by 2.1 percentage points in a single year and has risen substantially since the early 2000s, when employment among this age group was close to its historical low. The latest increase has been linked partly to pension reforms that are gradually raising France’s statutory retirement age from 62 to 64.

At first sight, this appears to be a straightforward story about people remaining in employment for longer. The more important question, however, is what kind of employment awaits them.

As governments respond to population ageing and increasing pressure on pension systems, longer working lives are becoming an economic and demographic necessity. Yet extending careers successfully requires far more than changing a retirement age. It requires organisations to reconsider how people are recruited, developed, supported and valued throughout the later stages of working life.

The French experience therefore presents both evidence of progress and an important warning.

A Dramatic Reversal

The rise in employment among people in their early 60s represents a remarkable reversal of previous labour-market trends. In 1975, approximately 40.5 per cent of people aged 60-64 in France were employed. By 2001, after decades in which early retirement was frequently used as a workforce-management tool, that figure had fallen to just 10.8 per cent. Since then, successive pension and employment reforms have helped produce a sustained recovery.

This change reflects a wider European shift. Longer life expectancy, lower birth rates and a shrinking proportion of working-age people are creating pressure on governments to increase employment participation at later ages. Organisations, meanwhile, are facing skills shortages and growing competition for experienced talent.

As a result, the once-familiar model of education, employment and abrupt retirement is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. Careers are becoming longer, more flexible and less linear. Retirement itself is evolving from a fixed destination into a transition that may include reduced hours, consultancy, portfolio work, mentoring or movement into a different occupation.

But public policy can only take this transition so far…ultimately, the success of longer working lives will depend on what happens inside organisations.

Employment Is Not the Same as Inclusion

A higher employment rate does not automatically mean that workplaces have become more age inclusive. People may remain in employment because they want to continue contributing, because they value the social and professional benefits of work, or because financial circumstances make retirement impractical.

Others may stay in roles that offer limited development, little flexibility or declining opportunities for progression…this distinction matters. An employment policy can extend the number of years someone works. Only an inclusive workplace can ensure those years remain productive, sustainable and fulfilling.

That means employers must look beyond simple workforce participation and ask deeper questions.

  • Do experienced employees continue to have access to learning and development?

  • Are they considered for promotion, new assignments and leadership opportunities?

  • Can working patterns adapt to changing health, caring or personal circumstances?

  • Do recruitment processes welcome applicants who are changing careers or returning to work later in life?

  • Are managers equipped to discuss future career plans without making assumptions about retirement?

Without attention to these questions, longer working lives risk becoming an obligation rather than an opportunity.

France Has Made Progress, but a Gap Remains

France’s new record should also be viewed in context. Despite the substantial improvement, employment among 60-64 year olds remains below the levels seen in several other European countries. OECD analysis published in June found that France’s employment rate for this age group was still 12.2 percentage points below the OECD average.

This illustrates why increasing the statutory retirement age alone cannot resolve the challenge. Many people leave employment before reaching retirement age because of redundancy, ill health, caring responsibilities, physically demanding work, outdated skills or difficulty finding another role after job loss.

Age bias can compound each of these issues. An experienced worker who becomes unemployed may discover that years of expertise are interpreted as excessive cost, limited adaptability or insufficient future potential. Someone seeking training may be overlooked because an employer assumes that the investment will not deliver a sufficient return. Others may find that opportunities begin to narrow long before any formal conversation about retirement takes place.

These barriers cannot be removed through pension reform, they require changes in employer behaviour.

Rethinking the Later Career

A genuinely age-inclusive organisation does not treat the later career as a period of managed decline, it recognises it as a distinct and potentially valuable phase of working life.

Employees in their 50s, 60s and beyond may want very different things. Some will seek progression and greater responsibility, others may want to reskill, change discipline, reduce their hours, transfer knowledge or contribute through mentoring and project-based work.

The role of the employer is not to prescribe one pathway, but to create sufficient flexibility for different pathways to exist.

This could include:

  • regular career conversations that are not framed around retirement assumptions

  • continued access to professional development and digital skills

  • midlife and later-career reviews

  • flexible or phased working arrangements

  • job redesign where physical demands create barriers

  • mentoring and reciprocal learning across generations

  • opportunities for experienced workers to move into new functions or professions

These practices benefit more than one age group. A workplace that supports career transitions, flexibility and lifelong learning is likely to become more inclusive and resilient for everyone.

The Role of Leadership

Extending working lives also raises an important leadership challenge, as organisations need to understand whether their culture genuinely values experience or simply tolerates it. This is often revealed through small, everyday decisions, who receives development investment, who is described as having potential, who is considered adaptable, and whose career ambitions are taken seriously.

Leaders must be prepared to challenge the assumption that ambition belongs primarily to younger employees or that experience necessarily creates resistance to change. They must also avoid replacing one stereotype with another. Not every older employee wants to mentor, and not every younger employee requires mentoring. People should be understood through their capabilities, aspirations and circumstances, rather than presumed generational characteristics.

Age inclusion is therefore not about designing a separate employment system for older workers. It is about creating a more flexible employment system for a workforce whose lives and careers are increasingly diverse.

Measurement Before Intervention

As governments place greater emphasis on later-life employment, organisations will need a clearer understanding of their own position. Headline workforce demographics are useful, but they do not reveal whether people of different ages have equal access to opportunity.

Employers should examine recruitment, retention, training, progression, performance management, flexible working and employee experience across the workforce. They should also consider where people are leaving and whether particular career stages are associated with declining opportunity or engagement.

This evidence allows organisations to move beyond general commitments and identify where practical change is required. The goal is not simply to increase the average age of the workforce, it is to ensure that people can continue contributing, developing and progressing for as long as they choose and are able to do so.

Research & Insights

France’s rising employment rate among people aged 60-64 demonstrates that workforce participation at later ages can change significantly. It also shows why public policy and organisational practice must develop together.

Raising retirement ages may increase the number of people remaining in employment, but it does not by itself create sustainable or inclusive careers. Organisations need to understand how their recruitment, learning, progression and workplace practices affect employees at every stage of working life.

Through the ADF Research & Insights Programme, Age Inclusion Methodology and Benchmark Diagnostic, the Age Diversity Forum helps organisations examine those practices systematically. The objective is not simply to retain people for longer, but to create the conditions in which longer careers can remain productive, purposeful and mutually valuable.

Looking Ahead

France’s employment figures are a sign of what is likely to become a much wider transformation. Across Europe and beyond, more people will remain economically active into their 60s and later. Governments will continue to reform pension systems, while employers will increasingly depend upon the skills and experience of people across a broader age range.

The success of this transition will not be determined solely by how long people work, it will be determined by whether work itself evolves with them. Longer working lives can strengthen economies, organisations and individual financial security, but only when they are accompanied by meaningful opportunity, flexibility, development and respect. The challenge for employers is therefore not simply to help people remain at work, it is to ensure that work remains worth staying for.