More older women have jobs than ever before, meaning they now outstrip working men of a corresponding age, according to official figures in the UK.

Men aged 50 and over suffered badly in the previous two recessions, in the early 1980s and early 1990s. Many older workers in manufacturing industries were forced into early retirement or moved onto incapacity benefit.

Employment rates for older men have recovered since the early 1990s but they have been overtaken in the job market by women as the sexes approach the ages at which they become eligible for state pensions, currently 60 for women and 65 for men.

The employment rate for men in the five years before the male state pension age is 58.4 per cent compared with 63.9 per cent for women aged 55 to 60. The employment rate beyond pension age is also slightly higher for women at 12.3 per cent compared with 10.7 per cent for men, according to ONS.

Age discrimination laws introduced two years ago should make it harder for employers to single out middle-aged men for redundancy, because they are more highly paid and closer to retiring, than others.

Pressure on companies to fund pensions also means employers will no longer be able to use pension arrangements to cushion the impact of early retirement. New rules introduced today will also make it more difficult to access incapacity benefits

According to ONS the overall male employment rate has fallen from more than 90 per cent in the early 1970s to about 79 per cent. In spite of this long-term decline, male unemployment has risen by only 2.9 percentage points while economic inactivity among males has increased by 11.3 per cent.

“The older workers who lost their jobs had more difficulty finding new work and many ended up, more or less permanently, on invalidity benefits and were therefore likely not to be recorded as unemployed,” said ONS.

The female employment rate over the same period has risen from less than 60 per cent in the 1970s to slightly more than 70 per cent. The gap as a result has narrowed from 35.7 percentage points to 8.4 percentage points. Women, however, are more likely to work part time than men.

The average retirement age for men has risen to 64.6, the highest level since 1984 and to 61.9 years for women, says Taen (The Age and Employment Network). The government intends to increase the state pension age to 65 for women between 2010 and 2020.

Chris Ball, Taen's chief executive, said: “Particularly interesting is that only a third of women working over the age of 50 are now actually retiring before they reach their current state pension age of 60 and that in the five years leading up to their state pension ages, more women are working than men.

“The fact that the average actual retirement age of women has risen to 61.9 years, is indicative of both the ‘pensions disadvantage' that women of that generation face – both in regard to state and occupational pensions – and also of a genuine desire amongst many of them to go on working.”

The increase in the ages at which both men and women aged above 50 were withdrawing from the labour force showed the trend towards earlier retirement has been reversed.

英国官方数据显示，英国在职老年女性比以往任何时候都多，在相应年龄段超过了在职男性。

在上世纪80年代初和90年代初的两次衰退中，年满50岁的男性遭受了沉重冲击。制造业中的许多老年雇员被迫提前退休或申请丧失工作能力福利(Incapacity Benefit)。

自上世纪90年代初以来，老年男性的就业率开始回升，但在接近符合领取政府养老金的年龄——目前是女性60岁，男性65岁——时，就业市场中的女性多于男性。

英国国家统计局(ONS)的数据显示，60至65岁男性的就业率是58.4%，而55至60岁的女性为63.9%。超过退休年龄的女性的就业率为12.3%，也略高于男性的10.7%。

两年前生效的禁止年龄歧视法应使得雇主更加难以辞退中年雇员。中年雇员比其他员工待遇更高，也更接近退休年龄。

公司支付养老金的压力也意味着，雇主再也不能利用养老金安排来缓解雇员提前退休的影响。昨日开始实施的新法律也将使人们更难以获得丧失工作能力福利。

英国国家统计局称，英国男性的整体就业率已从上世纪70年代初的逾90%降至约79%。尽管长期就业率下降，但男性失业率仅上升了2.9个百分点，而男性中无经济活动(economic inactivity)的比例上升了11.3%。

英国国家统计局表示：“失业的老年雇员更难以找到新工作，许多人最终——差不多是永久性地——只得领取丧失工作能力福利，因此可能不会登记为失业。”

同期，女性就业率从上世纪70年代的不到60%上升至稍高于70%，与男性的就业率之差从35.7个百分点缩小至8.4个百分点。但女性比男性更有可能从事兼职工作。

英国年龄与就业网络(Taen)表示，英国男性的平均退休年龄已上升至64.6岁——为1984年以来的最高水平，而女性的平均退休年龄为61.9岁。英国政府打算在2010年至2020年间将女性的法定退休年龄提高至65岁。

Taen首席执行官克里斯•鲍尔(Chris Ball)称：“特别有意思的是，50岁以上的就业女性中，目前仅有三分之一确实会在年满60岁的法定退休年龄之前退休。在到达法定退休年龄之前的5年，就业女性比男性更多。”

“女性平均实际退休年龄上升至61.9岁的事实，既说明了那一代女性‘在养老金方面的劣势地位'——包括国家和职业养老金，也说明有许多女性真心希望继续工作。”

50岁以上者——不论男女——离开劳动力市场年龄的上升，表明提前退休的趋势已发生逆转