Oct 12, 2026 · Comments ↓

I'm 55. I won't make it to 67 in work, and I'm not alone

I grew up thinking I'd retire at 60. Now my state pension age is 67, and at 55 I already can't work full time. A generation is being worn down before it gets there.

I’m 55. My state pension age is 67. I’m not going to make it there in work. There’s no way that’s going to happen.

I’m no pensions expert. I’ve just lived through it, and I’m watching the people around me live through it too.

I grew up thinking I’d retire at 60

In my twenties and thirties I had a number in my head. Not that I thought about retirement much, but the figure was there: 60.

It turns out the law had moved it while I wasn’t looking. The Pensions Act 1995 started raising women’s state pension age from 60. Then the Pensions Act 2007 put it at 67 for people born when I was. I was in my mid-thirties.

I didn’t know. I wasn’t the only one. When the Parliamentary Ombudsman looked into how the changes were communicated, it found that a survey in 2006 showed too many women still thought their state pension age was 60.

What I see around me

When I talk to people my age, I see people who are tired. Exhausted. It’s been a hard life. And we’re a rich country. We’ve got the technology, we’ve got everything we could need or want, and we’ve still worn people down.

For women, menopause comes up again and again, another layer on top of everything else. Some men I know are being pushed out of physical work later in life into jobs that aren’t there, or into a complete change of career they can’t picture doing at that age.

And many of us are holding up the generations either side. The kids. Parents who need care, moving into care homes, affairs to sort out.

I can only see my own age group from the inside. But that’s what I see.

The numbers say the same

The ONS published its latest figures on healthy life expectancy in February. That’s how long a baby born in 2022 to 2024 could expect to live in good health. For men in the UK it’s 60.7 years. For women, 60.9. Both are the lowest since the figures began, and Scotland is the lowest in the UK for men, at 59.1.

So healthy life expectancy at birth is about six years below my state pension age.

Richard Murphy wrote about a Health Foundation report on this in April. It found that in more than nine out of ten local authority areas, healthy life expectancy is now below state pension age. Murphy argues the causes are poor housing, insecure work, low incomes, chronic stress, and public services that have been lost. “None of those factors has emerged by chance in the UK. They are the product of political decisions.”

I read a lot of what he writes through my own lens of mental health. This is where the two meet.

Mental and physical health don’t stay separate

Years of poor mental health haven’t stayed in my head. Later in life they’ve shown up in my body too. I wrote recently about the diagnoses I’ve been given along the way.

I already struggle, and I can’t work full time at 55. That’s my reality. So I’ll do what I can, when I can. Bits and pieces, probably a lot like the gig economy. I’ll try to get to 60 and take it from there. My husband retires in four years, so I might look at it again then.

Strings attached

I depend on government top-ups. They come with strings attached, and the strings are the hardest part. Before state pension age, I have to justify everything.

Some people my age can drop to part time, if there’s another income in the house. I hear of people taking gig work to top up a private pension. Without a private pension, there’s nothing to do but wait for the state one.

It was made

This didn’t just happen. The harm to people’s mental and physical health is political and economic now. It’s beyond what services and support agencies can fix. It was made.

You can’t destroy jobs and demand that more people work, and you can’t raise the pension age while healthy life expectancy falls and call it fair.

If you employ people in their fifties, ask what you could change so they can stay, instead of waiting for them to leave.

If you’re in government, look at healthy life expectancy before you look at the pension age again.

And if you’re my age and worn out, it isn’t a personal failing. It was made.

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