5 jobs most likely to keep you gainfully employed for a lifetime (2024)

Conventional wisdom has long held that people in white-collar jobs can work longer than their blue-collar counterparts because of the lighter physical demands of the work, but new research suggests that some white-collar jobs offer prospects for longer working than others.

“The blue-collar/white-collar distinction is not the whole story,” says Amanda Sonnega, an assistant research scientist at the Michigan Retirement Research Center at the University of Michigan.

The center’s research on the occupational factors influencing retirement age—published in October 2015 and based on data from the national longitudinal Health and Retirement Study of 20,000 people over age 50, as well as the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Information Network—found that jobs with flexible hours or that involve less stress keep people working longer, as do “labor of love” jobs and jobs with low physical demands, says Brooke Helppie McFall, another research scientist at the center. “We also see that jobs that involve helping, working with or performing for others seem to encourage longer work,” says McFall.

Another study, published in September 2015 by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College and using the same data, explored how aging affects various skills and how long people can work in fields using those skills. The researchers ranked 900 jobs on a “susceptibility index” and found that some jobs are simply more prone to the effects of aging.

These five jobs rise to the top of the index and offer you the best chance of working until a ripe old age.

Teaching

The wise old college professor is a stereotype for a reason: Teaching, especially at the secondary and postsecondary levels, allows for some of the most-extended careers out there. That’s because it relies heavily on cognitive skills, like accumulated knowledge, that age well, as well as oral and written comprehension, says Geoffrey Sanzenbacher, a research economist at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

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Finance

This category encompasses numbers-related careers such as financial analysts, accountants, bookkeepers, and payroll and benefits managers.

These careers depend heavily on analytical skills that tend to stick with us as we age. “We hold on to the ability to work with numbers pretty well,” Sanzenbacher says.

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Law

Actor Sam Waterston spent 16 seasons as New York City’s executive assistant district attorney Jack McCoy on the court-room drama Law & Order, and his long-running tenure on TV mirrors the profession’s longevity in real life. That’s because attorneys rely on the same types of accumulated knowledge and oral and written comprehension that teaching does, Sanzenbacher says.

Related careers such as judges, paralegals and legal assistants also rank among longer-working jobs for the same reasons, Sonnega noted. “Lawyers and judges are very likely to work past age 65,” she says.

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Sales

The business of selling crosses many industries, including a wide variety of consumer and business products and services. But they do have one thing in common, according to Sonnega: “They all involve working with people, which tends to correlate with career longevity.”

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Social work

The idea of it being a “labor of love” factors heavily in keeping this field near the top of the list of careers with potential longevity. “Jobs that involve helping, working with, or performing for others seem to encourage longer work,” says McFall, noting the center’s research found a similar trend among clergy and religious workers.

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