Where the elderly are still working, whether by choice or necessity
Still at it.(Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)
Across
the US, people are enjoying time off today for Labor Day. Perhaps
they’re visiting parents or grandparents—after all, they probably have
the day off work, too.
The workforce, like society at large, is aging.
In the US, there are some 3 million more workers over 65 than there were
a decade ago. Although these older employees only comprise 5% of the
total workforce, they are one of the fastest growing groups of employed
Americans:
With pensions punished by the financial crisis,
some older people are working longer than they expected to fund their
(delayed) retirement. And given that people are living longer, others
choose to pass the time staying busy at work instead of pottering around
at home. Still others are being specifically sought for their experience and sympathetic customer-service skills.
Overall, nearly a fifth of Americans over 65 are
still working, which is among the highest rates in advanced economies.
With similar dynamics across the rich world, other countries are
catching up: Over-65 participation rates have roughly doubled in places
like Canada and Germany over the past decade:
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Danish researchers have an enraging proposal to speed up queues: Serve the last person first
May it never end.(Reuters/Toby Melville)
Hungarian-born British author George Mikes once wrote “an Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.”
Whether it’s at the bank or the grocery store,
waiting in line is a staple of British life. What, then, would Brits
make of Danish researchers who suggest the age-old discipline of
“first-come, first-serve” is a waste of time?
In their study, published in Discussion Papers on Business and Economics
(pdf) by the University of Southern Denmark, researchers describe the
“first-come, first-serve” principle as a “curse.” For the study, they
consider a purely theoretical situation where people could line up at
any time when a facility opens, like boarding an airplane.
The problem with “first-come, first-serve” is it
incentivizes people to arrive early, which researchers say results in
people waiting for the longest period of time. When this incentive is
removed—under a “last-come, first-serve” system—the queues are more
efficient. Researchers suggest that under this model, people are forced
to change their behaviors and arrive at the queues at a slower rate.
When people who arrive last are served first, there is less of a
bottleneck and thus less congestion in queues.
In another study, also published in Discussion Papers on Business and Economics
(pdf), researchers looked at three queuing systems; “first-come,
first-serve;” “last-come, first-serve;” and “service-in-random-order.”
To test out their theory, researchers got 144 volunteers to queue under
each system. When participants were told they would be served at random
from the queue, the average waiting time decreased. The waiting time
decreased even further under the “last-come, first-serve” system. It
seemed that most people didn’t want to risk turning up early, only to
end up being served last.
Yet when researchers measured how fair
participants felt each queuing system was, “first-come, first-serve” was
seen to be the most fair, while “last-come, first-serve” was seen as
the least. So good luck trying to implement this system in real life.
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