Academia doesn’t exist to give jobs to academics, but to provide value for students and wider society.
According to Harvard’s latest data, 37 percent of tenured professors at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences are over 65, and 44 percent of retirements occur at 75 or older. Many other universities without mandatory retirement also have high proportions of older faculty.
Should they be forced to retire to help younger researchers get a job? As Nature notes, many think so. Others find this ageist, arguing that older professors have a right to keep working.
I think both sides in this debate have the wrong perspective. Academia doesn’t exist to give jobs to academics, but to provide value for students and wider society. Consequently, older professors should only have to retire if they provide less value than their younger replacements.
