Changing the pension rules is notwelcome news for all, writes Josh Jennings.

If the raising of the pension age had occurred 50 years ago, 40-year-old sales representative Darren Rautman probably wouldn't have liked it. After all, illness or mortality were likely to strike earlier back then.

Now, when he reaches 67, Rautman thinks it's reasonable to expect that he'll be in good physical and mental nick. There are bigger issues to worry about than having to wait until you're 67 to qualify for the age pension, he says."

I feel pretty good and I could see myself working until about 70," Rautman says.

The Government outlined its plans to lift the pension age to 67 - in stages from 2017 - in the federal budget inMay.With the population getting older, Kevin Rudd explained, the main reason to change the eligibility point is that there will be fewer people working to support a greater pool of retirees.

Not everyone is at ease with the pension age rising, however. The AustralianManufacturingWorkers Union national secretary, Dave Oliver, for one, is apprehensive."

We think it's inappropriate that people should be forced to work longer than they need to," he says."

If you're talking to workers who are getting on who are working in heavy manual areas, they see it as a very significant issue."

Recent discussions about increasing the superannuation guarantee age to 67 have proven controversial, too. The chief executive of the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees, Fiona Reynolds, says she has concerns about rising retirement ages."

I think everybody who does want to work until they're 70, 75 or whatever age that is, that's fantastic," she says. "We should encourage them to do it but we should also recognise that there are people who can't work until 67. The Government has acknowledged there are people who can't work until 67 but they haven't said what's going to happen to those people."

Rautman says he would retire now if he didn't need to work to pay the mortgage and bills and put his children through school. But whether he works until he's 65 or 67, he doesn't consider the difference dramatic enough to warrant much concern."

I only think it'd start to make a really big difference if they lifted the pension age to 80," he says.

Australians are spending considerably more of their later life in the workforce. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures in 1997 show the average retirement age was 41 for women and 58 for males. In 2005, the average age of those who retired more than five years ago was 47 for women and 58 for men, and 58 for women and 61 for men who retired in the past five years.

With more Australians sticking around longer in the workforce, it's important they take various steps to maximise their experience, says the chief executive of theNational Seniors Association,Michael O'Neill."

I think there are obligations on employers, employees, governments and businesses generally to always try to maximise positions," he says. "With employees in particular, one of the things that's really important is to retain the currency of your skills - the currency of your technology knowledge, for example, or whatever your career is in."

Still Putting In, a report released last month by National Seniors Australia that examines the economic and social contributions of older Australians, shows that more than 160,000 Australians who want to work are not pursuing employment - 30 per cent of them believe employers consider them too old to hire. It also shows that over-55s contribute the equivalent of $2 billion a year volunteering.

According to O'Neill, ageism in the workforce is still prevalent.He adds that raising the pension age is a promising idea but policies need to transformgeneral attitudes to older workers if the Government hopes to capitalise on it."

The evidence is that if you become unemployed in your mid- 50s and beyond, you're going to be unemployed for more than twice the length of time that a younger person will experience unemployment," he says. "There's an issue there within the workplace around older workers, for whatever reason. I think there's an inherent problem there in the way the workplace and community in general treats older workers."

The PrimeMinister has voiced his intention to provide flexible training arrangements that create multiple work options for employees as they grow older but Natalie Jackson, a social demographer with the University of Tasmania, questions the practicality of transitioning employees into other jobs later in life. What really happens to older employees lugging bricks around the building site when their backs pack it in?

"[What about] the 62-year-old builder who's got to go on and do something else after building all his life; he's perhaps going to have quite a resistance to book learning," she says. "We have quite a few women in their late 40s and 50s who are training in social work and when they get through they find it really hard to get the experience they need to then get a position as a social worker."