Frontiers in Public Health
Fitness for work and the aging workforce: medical assessment as a de facto mechanism of retirement in the United Kingdom after the abolition of the default retirement age
Background Fitness for work is the judgement that a person is medically able to perform a role safely. This review considers the concept to have been shaped for a younger workforce expected to leave employment at a fixed retirement age. As populations have aged and mandatory retirement ages have been abolished, it is the instrument that remains available for questions it was not designed to answer. Methods This review traces the origins of the concept and examines what fitness for work means when applied to an agin …