Latin America

Activity rates (the proportion of the population that is economically active) for Latin American countries are hard to come by, and even when they are found (e.g., as estimated by the Census Bureau's International Programs Center), the figures tend not to be comparable between countries or even between years in the same country. Still, a picture emerges of fairly high activity rates among males age sixty and over compared with countries such as the United States and Canada, where there are widespread pension programs. (Reported economic activity among older women is quite low.) There appears to be no widespread definition of when "old" means "too old to work," especially for people who draw no pension. For instance, in 1995 roughly a fourth of males age sixty-five and older in Argentina were reported as economically active. Over 40 percent of Colombia's males sixty and over were reported as economically active in 1996. When people retire, it is not usually because they have become eligible for a pension, although activity rates tend to be lower for people in urban areas and/or with more education.