The idea
It is all very well the government raising the retirement age to save money, but they only see it from an office bound point of view.
Manual workers whose jobs involve heavy lifting, working in confined spaces and up and down ladders etc, such as plumbers, heating engineers, electricians, brick-layers and the like ,really start to struggle at around 55 years of age. It is a form of cruelty to expect them to carry on until they drop at around 70. In my life time as an engineer I have had three slipped discs, two knee operations, and a shoulder operation, all as a direct result of my job, and I know I am not alone amongst manual workers with these kind of injuries.
The joke is that civil servants, and many public sector workers are actively encouraged to retire at 55 with fat pensions after doing nothing more physically strenuous than lifting a pen and paper throughout their careers.
Why is it important?
because it isn't fair to expect older men to carry on with physically demanding work until they drop dead