Mark Pearson, deputy director for employment, labour and social affairs at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), says: “It is possible to do better in terms of getting people to work over the age of 65 in countries such as Japan and New Zealand - already they have 40pc of the population aged 65-69 in work. The UK is going to struggle to get there, because frankly our population isn’t healthy enough to work that long.”