More older workers age 65 and up are already staying on the job longer, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

From 1995 to 2007, the number of older workers on full-time schedules nearly doubled, while the number working part-time increased 19 percent, according to the federal statistics. As a result, full-timers now account for a majority among older workers: 56 percent last year, up from 44 percent in 1995.

The increase doesn’t reflect the aging of the baby-boom population, whose members are now entering their early 60s. Rather, a “larger share of people 65 and older [are] staying in or returning to the labor force,” which consists of those working or looking for work, the bureau said.

The data also show that last year, almost one in three workers aged 65 and over had a bachelor’s degree or higher. That compares with one in four older workers a decade earlier — and with 34 percent of workers age 25 to 64.

The median weekly earnings of full-time workers age 65 and up last year was $605, compared with median weekly earnings of $695 for all workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In recent years, “earnings of older workers have risen at a slightly faster pace than the total work force,” the bureau said. “In 1979, median earnings of older full-time employees were 83 percent of those aged 16 and up but by 2007, the ratio had climbed to 87 percent.”

Among women, the median weekly paycheck for full-time workers rose from $170 in 1979 to $534 last year.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics also projected the percentage of workers age 65-plus in the labor force will grow to 6.1 percent by 2016, from 3.6 percent in 2006.

“With the baby-boom generation about to start joining the ranks of those aged 65 and over, the graying of the American work force is only just beginning,” the bureau said.