That's not to say that all employers have their head in the sand. In fact, one major industry, health care, often dominates lists of the best employers for older workers. (In addition, women make up about 80 percent of the health-care workforce.)  Ann Doshi, a nurse educator at Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey, is still going full steam at "65-plus," as she puts it, or just shy of 66. Doshi has been working in operating rooms for 40 years, first as a scrub technician, then as an operating room nurse, and now as an educator for other operating room nurses.  "To be in this kind of position, they prefer someone with experience," she said. "It's one thing to use theory, and another to have the hands-on experience." But Doshi thinks the same may not hold true in other professions. "I think you find that in many fields, when people reach certain ages, the mentality is 'maybe we can get someone in here who is fresh,' " she said.  Read MoreThese Americans did more than $470B of unpaid work  Baby boomers represent about 40 percent of the Atlantic Health workforce, said Lesley Meyer, corporate manager of human resources.  Carol Indri, 50, an operating room nurse at Morristown and one of Doshi's trainees, also finds the hospital and its parent company, Atlantic Health, very open to workers in the AARP years. But she said she knows people who have not been nearly so lucky. She pointed to a friend of hers whose husband left her when she was in her early 40s, who has been "barely able to keep a job" and is now "on the welfare side of life."  Employers may soon be forced to make more provisions for older workers. People over age 65 accounted for 12.6 percent of the U.S. population in 1990, but their share is expected to increase to 16.8 percent by 2020 and 20.9 percent by 2050, according to Census Bureau calculations.  For now, though, older workers would do well to have a plan B for their so-called golden years.
Most older workers say they want to work past age 65. Whether employers are doing what's needed to keep them is another matter.