Seventy-one is the new 65 for a growing number of Ontario university professors who are staying on the job past the traditional retirement age.

A new report from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario suggests this demographic shift is putting pressure on the budgets of post-secondary institutions and could be limiting the hiring of younger professors.

The report’s authors calculate that about 2000 full time professorial positions would have been created over the past decade if the salary costs of the entire over-65 faculty cohort was applied toward hiring new PhD graduates into permanent positions.

Since mandatory retirement ended in Ontario, the proportion of faculty over 65 has grown from almost zero to close to 9 percent.

Many Canadians are working past the traditional retirement age, with the employment rate of men and women between the ages of 65 and 69 increasing at the fastest rate.