Extending Working Life for Older Workers: Age Discrimination Law, Policy and Practice by Alysia Blackham. Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2016, ISBN: 978 1 50990 576 8, Kindle Edition £38.28, £28.99, paperback

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-219
Author(s):  
George R. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Older Workers ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Age Discrimination ◽  
Policy And Practice

scholarly journals The affective component of ageism needs attention

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 583-594
Author(s):  
Per Erik Solem
Keyword(s):  
Panel Data ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Small Difference ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Age Discrimination ◽  
Job Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Affective Component ◽  
Broad Approach

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore responses of older workers and of managers to the call from the authorities to extend working life.Design/methodology/approachData are from the Norwegian Senior Policy Barometer with interviews with samples of about 750 managers and 1,000 workers each year from 2003. There is no panel data.FindingsOlder workers increasingly prefer to extend their working career. The preferred age for exit has increased from 61 years in 2003 to 66 years in 2018. Managers seem less interested in expanding their older workforce. A majority of managers expressed quite positive conceptions of older workers' performance, but less often they liked to recruit older workers. As an average, managers told that they would hesitate to call in applicants above 58 years of age to job interviews. Age for hesitation is only moderately correlated (r = 0.29) to managers' beliefs about older workers’ performance at work. Thus, the managers' beliefs about older workers’ performance made only a small difference for their willingness to hire older workers.Research limitations/implicationsThe results suggest that counteracting stereotypes, prejudice and age discrimination in working life needs a broad approach, including attention to the affective component of ageism. For research, the measurement of the affective component needs consideration and further exploration.Originality/valueThe article brings data from a distinctive Norwegian context and approaches the rarely studied affective component of ageism in working life.

scholarly journals Competence and Learning in Late Career

2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leif Chr. Lahn
Keyword(s):  
Age Differences ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Life Changes ◽  
Cognitive Ageing ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Learning At Work ◽  
Boundaryless Careers

Issues of late career have recently attracted much political and public interest but contributions from research have been meagre. In this article, a review is made of the literature on cognitive ageing and learning abilities in an occupational context. Multidimensional and non-linear perspectives are increasingly replacing models of late career as a period of declining expertise. Data from an European Union Framework Programme 4 research project ‘Working Life Changes and the Training of Older Workers' (WORKTOW), supports such a redefinition. Also, the optimistic scenarios for late career that are held out by the literature on ‘boundaryless careers' are challenged. A sociocultural framework that is more sensitive to the institutional and cultural context of age differences in learning at work is asked for.

How do employers think about older workers?

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hila Axelrad ◽  
Alexandra Kalev ◽  
Noah Lewin-Epstein
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Age Discrimination ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Pension Income ◽  
Significant Barrier

PurposeHigher pensionable age in many countries that are part of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and a shrinking pension income force older people to postpone their retirement. Yet, age-based discrimination in employers' decisions is a significant barrier to their employment. Hence, this paper aims to explore employers' attitudes regarding the employment of workers aged 60–70, striving for a better understanding of age discrimination.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 30 managers, experts and employees in retirement age in Israel.FindingsFindings reveal a spectrum of employers' attitudes toward the employment of older workers. The authors' analytical contribution is a conceptual typology based on employers' perceived ability to employ older workers and their stated attitudes toward the employment of older workers.Social implicationsThe insights that emerge from this research are fundamental for organizational actors' ability to expand the productive, unbiased employment of older workers.Originality/valueBy understanding employers' preferences and perspectives and the implications on employers' ability and/or willingness to employ older workers, this research will help policymakers formulate and implement policy innovations that address these biases.

Theoretical and conceptual issues in the extending working lives agenda

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clary Krekula ◽  
Sarah Vickerstaff
Keyword(s):  
Older Workers ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Life Course Perspective ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
Job Opportunities ◽  
The One ◽  
New Research ◽  
Individual Choices

The policy debate on older people's extended participation in working life is not based on a social movement, such as the one putting forward demands on job opportunities for women, and has, by means of categorical stereotypes, mostly characterised older people as the problem. This narrative of individual choices and decisions presents older workers as de-gendered, de-classed individuals, shorn of their individual biographies and social contexts. It also treats the issue of extending working life as a phenomenon disconnected from surrounding society and trends. This line of reasoning points to the need for more sophisticated theoretical foundations. This chapter therefore provides a more encompassing framework for the discussion of extending working lives and outlines a new research agenda, including a power perspective with potential to shed light on age-based inequality, an intersectional perspective and a masculinity perspective which challenges the homogenous descriptions of older workers, a feminist understanding of work and a life course perspective which provides a framework which links the previous three.

scholarly journals Swedish Collective Agreements and Employers’ Willingness to Hire and Retain Older Workers in Employment

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carin Ulander-Wänman
Keyword(s):  
Older Workers ◽  
Total Population ◽  
Working Hours ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Elderly Persons ◽  
Older Employees ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
The Eu

Demographic change is transforming the EU population structure for the coming decades. One challenge that society faces is to preserve social welfare when elderly persons comprise a larger proportion of the total population. Allowing people to work beyond the current retirement age may help slow the growth of the maintenance burden for welfare costs, and creating situations where larger numbers of older employees can work longer and complete more working hours can improve conditions for preserving and developing welfare. However, a prolonged working life presupposes several conditions; one of these is that legal regulation of the labor market must support employers’ willingness to hire and retain older workers in employment. This article explores employers’ attitudes toward regulations in Swedish collective agreements—regulations which are of particular importance if employers are to increase hiring and retention of older workers in employment.

Some Useful Sources

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 691-694
Author(s):  
Michael McGann ◽  
Dina Bowman ◽  
Simon Biggs ◽  
Helen Kimberley
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Human Resource ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Population Ageing ◽  
Age Discrimination ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Early Exit ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Working Lives

Issues related to population ageing and longer working lives span diverse research areas and are linked to a number of conceptual and policy debates. Here we provide details of texts which allow quick access to key debates in the different domains covered by the contributions. We focus first on social policy, retirement and pensions. We then provide key sources on the changing experiences and perceptions of retirement; age-discrimination, human resource management and older workers; and early exit, mature-age unemployment and activating older workers.

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