The retirement of retirement

I think another of my predictions is about to come true, sooner than I had thought.  It has long been my expectation that for people of my age or younger there will be no retirement as such, and that people will be expected to work until they're no longer physically or mentally capable of doing so.

The end of an official retirement age is both a blessing and a curse.  For some it will be very beneficial, and for others (probably the majority) it will be an unpleasant forced "choice" due to economic circumstances.

Also it's worth pointing out, because some people seem to make strange assumptions, that I don't believe that average human life spans will increase dramatically in the near future and there is reason to expect that average life span may shrink or remain static.  Indefinite life spans, if they're possible at all, are something for the more distant future.  The transition to a post-oil economy could be rough or smooth, and just depends upon how intelligently it's managed by politicians and businesses.  There are likely to be political troubles emerging from the rising tide of automation as it eats into traditional middle class forms of white collar employment, producing even greater social polarisation.

So there is likely to be demand in future for technologies which not just help people to live better quality lives for longer in a medical sense, but also enable them to remain within the workforce for longer, and this would include mobility assisting devices and also systems which augment cognition.