Editorial: King Charles at 74 is an inspiration to older workers, as were his parents

​​An intriguing thing is happening in the workplace. For a long while there has been an emerging discrepancy between the age at which people retire and the age at which they die. The good news is that people are now dying on average far, far later than they did until quite recently. Fifty years ago most people were lucky if they reached their biblical threescore years and ten. In the case of men, who made up the great bulk of the workforce, they had usually retired only a few years before. It was a bleak outlook. You work hard, often then six days a week, and then have a few years of retirement before death. Now people are living far longer, on average to about 80, and are rightly keen to enjoy these newfound post working years.

At the same time, however, many older folk want to stay active and in employment. Now research has found that the number of men aged over 70 who are still in work has increased in the past decade. There are nearly 280,000 men in the age group who are not yet retired, which compares to 176,000 in 2012.

Stuart Lewis, chief executive of Rest Less, which offers advice to older workers and discovered the finding, said that King Charles, at 74, "is a fantastic example of someone who both enjoys, and benefits from, continuing to work post-state pension age".

This is an uplifting thought on the eve of the coronation. The king’s mother and father, the late Queen Elizabeth II and her consort Prince Philip, were an inspirational role model for older people. The queen reached the then retirement age for women of 60 in 1986, and could justifiably have wound down her duties then. But she and the Duke of Edinburgh pressed on with engagements until their 90s.

More and more people want to work longer too.