Report: Over 95% of pensioners in Ghana want to keep working beyond the retirement age of 60

Josephine Amuzu 10:05 - 21 August 2026

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Ghanaian pensioners want to work beyond retirement age

A CREX study reveals 96% of Ghanaian pensioners are eager to work past retirement age, but 93% lack platforms to share their valuable expertise.

96% willing to work: Most pensioners surveyed want to remain professionally active beyond the retirement age.
About 93% said they do not know of platforms where they can offer their skills and experience.
Many are willing to mentor, advise, volunteer and work in rural communities after retirement.

Retirement may mark the end of formal employment, but for many Ghanaian pensioners, it does not mean the end of their willingness or ability to work.

A new study by the Centre for Retired Experts (CREX) has found that 96% of pensioners surveyed are willing to work beyond the mandatory retirement age, highlighting a large pool of experienced professionals who could continue contributing to national development.

The study, conducted in February 2026, examined the willingness, motivations and capacity of retirees to remain engaged in productive activities after leaving formal employment. It involved 559 pensioners from across Ghana.

Speaking at a research dissemination seminar at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Dr Adam Salifu, a lecturer at UPSA and co-researcher, said the findings point to a major gap between the willingness of retirees to contribute and the systems available to connect them with opportunities.

According to Dr Salifu, nearly all the pensioners surveyed were willing to mentor younger professionals, while about 88% were prepared to serve as advisers or board members.

However, approximately 93% said they were unaware of any existing platform through which they could offer their skills and experience.

“The problem is about coordination and not willingness. Who is there to coordinate these people? They are willing to work, but we don’t have the mechanism there to coordinate them,” he said.

As reported by CitiNews, the findings suggest that Ghana could be missing an opportunity to make use of the knowledge and experience of retired professionals simply because there are limited mechanisms to connect them with organisations that need their expertise.

The study also found that retirement had not significantly affected how respondents viewed their usefulness to society.

About 86% disagreed with the assertion that they had become less useful to society after retirement, while approximately 87% continued to consider themselves useful to national development.

At the same time, about 97% agreed that there is a gap between the potential of retirees and the systems available to engage them productively.

More than half of the respondents also favoured extending the retirement age to 65 or beyond, suggesting that many consider the current mandatory retirement age of 60 too early.

Despite their willingness to remain active, the study found that only about one in five retirees were still professionally engaged.

Many of the others were mainly involved in religious, social, community and family-related activities.

Interestingly, the desire to earn additional income was not the main motivation for remaining active.

Dr Salifu said many respondents were driven primarily by the desire to remain mentally active and contribute to national development, while income supplementation accounted for only about 14% of the motivations cited.

Governance and development activities emerged as the most preferred areas of engagement, attracting about 21% of respondents each.

These were followed by business and education, while agriculture and health recorded comparatively lower levels of interest.

Dr Salifu attributed the lower interest in agriculture partly to the sector's labour-intensive nature and limited mechanisation.

He noted that the response regarding health could also have been influenced by the composition of the study sample.

The study further showed that many pensioners would be willing to take up structured assignments after retirement, particularly when basic support is provided.

About 98% said they were willing to volunteer if transportation and meals were provided.

More than 84% said they could commit between one and four hours a day, while over 90% indicated they could work between one and four days a week.

The willingness to share their experience also extended to mentoring and advisory roles.

About 90% expressed willingness to mentor young professionals, while 88% were prepared to serve as advisers.

Even rural and deprived communities were not excluded from their willingness to contribute, with approximately 98% saying they would be willing to work in such communities.

The findings present retirement in a different light — not simply as the end of a professional career, but as a potential transition into new forms of contribution.

With a large majority of respondents willing to continue working, mentoring, advising and volunteering, the study suggests that the challenge may be less about convincing retirees to contribute and more about creating systems that connect their experience with national and community needs.

For Ghana, developing structured platforms for engaging retired professionals could provide a way to preserve and transfer valuable knowledge while giving retirees opportunities to remain active and purposeful after leaving formal employment.