The collective labour agreements for such physically-taxing occupations generally arrange for pension funding that enables employees to stop work before reaching the statutory retirement age. That is understandable, and may continue on broadly the same lines as far as I am concerned.
The most intriguing suggestion I have come across is the notion that the economy evolves according to the same laws that govern biological evolution. There are other notions abroad, such as the replacement of the evasive economic concept of “welfare” with “happiness” as the objective of economic transactions.