My Canadian sojourn delivered a small potpourri of adventures, including the spotting of wild animals. The most novel experience however was a conversation with an ‘Indian’, or ‘First Nation’ person, called Ten Bears. I would guess he was in his mid-50s, with the weather beaten features that told of an outdoor life.

I was amazed to learn that Ten Bears used a bow and arrow to hunt. It’s partly in the name of sport and long standing culture of course, but he told me a moose would fit in his freezer and provide enough meat for a year!

“It’s easier to hit one in your car,” he said, referring to his commuting journey of two hours each way to work from his home on a reservation. I noted he was in paid employment and seemingly willing to travel for it. Assumptions and stereotypes are revised by such experiences.

It seems an opportune moment to reflect on the comparative experiences of the two North American countries regarding mandatory retirement. We published a paper by Casey Wunsch and Jaya Vimal Raman earlier this year when we were looking for international experience to inform the Government’s review of the default retirement age in the UK.

While mandatory retirement is no longer lawful in both the USA and Canada, there are some differences between these countries. In Canada, a stop start approach to outlawing mandatory retirement can be traced back to early beginnings in 1964 when the Government of British Columbia introduced the first Act against age discrimination.

Mandatory retirement per se was not outlawed until 2006 by the Government of Ontario with other provinces following suit progressively, the last province being Nova Scotia on 1 July 2009. So like the UK, age discrimination legislation did not include a ban on discriminatory retirement, at least initially.

Likewise in the USA; there anti age discrimination legislation was introduced in its earliest form in 1967, but the first Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) protected workers between 40 and 65 only. In 1978 the Carter administration raised the scope of the ADEA to cover ages up to 70, at the same time eliminating mandatory retirement for federal employees.

Mandatory retirement was finally abolished under the Reagan administration in 1986 with very few exceptions. Implementation of the new age cap was delayed for some employers until 1994.

Interestingly then, abolition of mandatory retirement was supported by governments of varied political hues in the USA and Canada. While it was strengthened some 24 years ago in the USA following its initial introduction 21 years previously, some employers have had to learn to cope with mandatory retirement as recently as 16 years ago when the 1986 law eventually became operative.

It must be no coincidence that the USA, with 20 per cent of the 65 to 69 age range in employment, has the highest proportion of post 65 people employed among any of the developed nations. Canada is similar, however. Even in the late 1990s around 20 per cent of Canadian men in the 65 to 69 age range were employed. By comparison 10 per cent of 65 to 69 year olds are in work in the UK.

Whatever the issues for UK employers may be as they adjust to working without a mandatory retirement age, they might take comfort in the fact that two of the world’s economies with the highest rates of labour productivity have not only chosen the route of abolishing mandatory retirement but have returned, time and again, to do so better.

As for Ten Bears, I have no idea if or when he will choose to retire, whether the concept of retirement is part of First Nation People’s culture, nor whether he has an adequate pension to support him in old age. Unlike me, however, he can survive using his bow and arrow if he has to!