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  3. Problems of the aged Mandatory (强制性的) Retirement By late middle age many workers are looking forward to retirement, an

Problems of the aged Mandatory (强制性的) Retirement By late middle age many workers are looking forward to retirement, an

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问题                        Problems of the aged
    Mandatory (强制性的) Retirement
    By late middle age many workers are looking forward to retirement, and millions of those who have retired are only too glad to exchange the routines of work for the satisfaction that a more leisured life may bring. Many other workers, however, are reluctant to give up their jobs. A 1974 Harris poll found that nearly a third of retired people aged sixty-five or over would prefer to work. The desire to continue working often stems from harsh economic reality, for retirement usually brings a sharp drop in income. Some workers fear the loss of social identity that can result from not having a job. They may be left with "nothing to do", and may find that their lives are robbed of significant meaning and fulfillment. Those old people who would like to continue working are all too often the victims of what is perhaps the most striking example of age discrimination (歧视): the practice of mandatory retirement, under which people are forced to give up their jobs once they reach a certain age. Until recently the precise age for mandatory retirement varied from job to job--fifty-six for air-traffic controllers, fifty-five for New York City fire fighters, seventy for Harvard professors. The usual mandatory retirement age, however, was sixty-five. In 1978 Congress passed new legislation that raised the legal mandatory retirement age to seventy for most employees. Under the new law, employers cannot require a worker to retire 15efore the age of seventy, although workers of course may still retire before that age if they wish.
    The objection to mandatory retirement is that it throws people out of their jobs at a purely arbitrary age, without regard for their individual abilities. There is no evidence to suggest that most people over the age of sixty-five or seventy are incapable of working; at the turn of the century, in fact, 70 percent of men over sixty-five were active in the labor force. Mandatory retirement absurdly implies that people are capable of productive labor until the day before their seventieth birthday, then abruptly become physically or mentally incapable of performing their jobs. It also implies that we treat all members of the same age group as though they had identical competence or incompetence at their jobs--when, in fact, the mental and physical abilities of any group of people born at the same time become more dissimilar, not more similar, as they grow older.
    Why does enforced retirement exist, and why do employers try to persuade their employees to retire at the age of sixty-five? The reason is that mandatory retirement is an administrative convenience for the employers. In the past, when most workers produced their own goods or were their own bosses, they worked until they either died or chose to stop work. This is still the case today with self-employed workers, such as artists, owners of businesses, or lawyers. But fully 80 percent of Americans today are employed by other people or organizations--primarily large corporations and federal, state, or local government agencies. These organizations face the problem of finding some orderly way of phasing out (淘汰) their older employees who might have become unproductive. It is far more convenient for the employers to achieve this by an arbitrary age rather than by the fairer but more cumbersome (笨拙的)alternative of periodically reviewing the productivity of each individual worker.
    Economic Problems
    One of the most common and serious problems faced by the aged is that of making ends meet from one day to the next. In 1977 the aged had a median family income of around $6,292, compared with ＄12,702 for those aged eighteen to sixty-four. This figure is even lower than that for blacks and other racial minorities. As recently as 1970 some 25 percent of the aged were living below the poverty line. Many other aged people live just above the poverty line; the number who can be said to be living in real affluence (富裕) is small indeed.
    The economic problems of the elderly often begin before they reach retirement age, for there is considerable discrimination against workers some time before they reach sixty-five. Older workers generally receive higher wages and more benefits than younger workers, performing the same job, and employers are often tempted to oust (驱逐)them. Unemployed workers in this age group have great difficulty finding new jobs and remain unemployed for much longer than younger unemployed workers. Workers aged forty to sixty-five are protected to some extent by the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which makes it illegal for an employer to advertise for job applicants or a specific age or to refuse employment on the grounds of age alone. Such laws are easily made, however, employers can advertise, for example, for someone with 1-5 years experience," thus automatically disqualifying older workers.
    Retirement almost always brings a sharp drop in income. More then half of families aged sixty-five have less than half of the annual income they enjoyed during the previous ten years. For some the drop is even greater, thrusting them into or near poverty. The only real asset that most elderly have is a home that they own, paid for during their earlier years. Although a small number have savings or other assets, for 80 percent of retired Americans their only source of income is Social Security.
    Health Problems
    One of the severest problems of the aged is that of declining health--and of how to pay for the needed medical treatment. Although they represent only 10 percent of the total population, they represent a third of hospital populations and consume a quarter of the drugs prescribed each year. Their medical expenses are far greater than those of the non-aged--six times more than those faced by young adults, and three times more than the costs for the middle-aged. Medicaid and Medicare have reduced some of the costs, but the old must still pay for such things as medical checkups, drugs prescribed outside hospitals, eyeglasses, or hearing aids--which are not covered by the two programs. The medical costs of the elderly are particularly high because they suffer primarily from chronic (慢性的)illnesses--conditions that cannot be cured, although they can often be treated to make the symptoms lighter, or to slow down the process of the disease. Over 80 percent of the aged have at least one chronic illness, such as arthritis (风湿病), diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, and many suffer several chronic illnesses at the same time. The elderly are less likely than the young to contract acute illnesses, but when they do, they take much longer than the young to recover.
The 9nly asset most elderly have is a ______.
选项
答案a home of their own
解析 根据Economic Problems部分第三段。
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