5 Countries, 5 Different Realities of Working After 55

From Japan’s high employment rate to Italy’s gender divide and Mexico’s surprisingly low unemployment, international figures reveal how differently people experience their later working years.

What does working life look like after 55?

In some countries, nearly eight in ten people aged 55–64 remain employed. In others, barely more than half do. But even similar employment rates can conceal very different realities, including unequal opportunities for men and women, differences in access to professional training, and barriers to finding work.

An analysis for The Silver Times, drawing on international labour-market statistics, highlights five countries that illustrate these contrasts. Rather than identifying the best or worst places to work after 55, they reveal why understanding later-life employment requires looking beyond a single number.

1. Japan: Nearly Eight in Ten Older Adults Are Still Working

Japan stands out for the high proportion of people who remain employed later in their careers. In 2025, approximately 79.8% of people aged 55–64 were employed, one of the highest rates among the countries examined.

But continued employment does not necessarily translate into equally strong participation in professional training. The available figures show job-related training participation of approximately 26.4%, considerably below the reported levels in Norway and New Zealand.

Japan illustrates an important distinction: a labour market can successfully retain experienced workers without necessarily recording equally high participation in structured learning. As careers extend, the opportunities available to workers to develop new skills become an increasingly relevant part of the picture.

2. Sweden: High Employment With a Remarkably Small Gender Gap

Sweden also records strong employment among older workers. Approximately 78.4% of people aged 55–64 were employed in 2025, while labour-force participation reached 83.8%.

What makes Sweden particularly interesting is the relatively small difference between men’s and women’s employment rates. At approximately 2.5 percentage points, the gender employment gap is among the narrowest in the countries examined.

This contrasts sharply with countries where older women are considerably less likely than men to be employed. Sweden’s figures suggest that strong overall participation and relatively balanced employment between men and women can coexist, although employment rates alone cannot establish equality in earnings, job quality or career opportunities.

3. New Zealand: Combining Employment With Continued Learning

New Zealand offers another example of strong later-life labour-market participation. Approximately 77.2% of people aged 55–64 were employed in 2025, with labour-force participation approaching 80%.

Its reported participation in job-related training is also notable, at approximately 54.6%.

Together, these figures highlight two dimensions of economic participation: remaining employed and continuing to engage in professional development.

As technology and workplace requirements evolve, opportunities to acquire new skills may become particularly important for people extending their careers or seeking new employment after 55. New Zealand’s figures offer an example of how employment and continued learning can both feature prominently in the later stages of working life.

4. Italy: A Substantial Gender Divide Behind the National Average

In Italy, approximately 61.2% of people aged 55–64 were employed in 2025, considerably below the rates recorded in Japan, Sweden and New Zealand.

But the more revealing figure concerns the difference between men and women.

Italy’s gender employment gap in this age group stood at approximately 20.8 percentage points, compared with just 2.5 percentage points in Sweden.

The contrast points to inequalities that extend beyond the years immediately preceding retirement. Career interruptions, unpaid care responsibilities and differences in access to employment may shape people’s working lives long before they reach their late 50s.

Italy demonstrates why a national employment rate cannot fully describe the opportunities available to older adults, particularly when those opportunities differ substantially by gender.

5. Mexico: Low Unemployment, but Many Older Adults Outside Employment

Mexico presents a different picture. In 2025, approximately 56.5% of people aged 55–64 were employed, substantially below the levels recorded in Japan and Sweden.

Yet its unemployment rate for this age group was only 1.3% in 2024.

The apparent contradiction reflects an important distinction in labour-market statistics. Unemployment measures people without work who are actively seeking employment and available to work, rather than everyone who is not employed.

A country can therefore have low unemployment even when a substantial share of its older population is outside paid employment.

In Mexico, informal work and differences in labour-force participation also need to be considered when interpreting the figures. The country illustrates why low unemployment alone cannot demonstrate that older adults have broad access to employment.

This article is based on research conducted for The Silver Times’ Productive Longevity Index, drawing on OECD and ILO data on employment, labour-force participation, unemployment, job-related training and gender employment gaps among people aged 55–64. The index remains under methodological review, and the figures are preliminary.