A think-tank report examined the labour market for older workers. It said that age discrimination laws were unlikely to help the situation of older workers. The addition of the default mandatory retirement age of 65 in pension regulations had made the position worse, by preventing pension schemes developing to allow flexible retirement.
Source: John Heywood and Stanley Siebert, Understanding the Labour Market for Older Workers, Discussion Paper 23, Institute of Economic Affairs (020 7799 8900)
Links: Report
Date: 2008-Dec
An article examined the employment problems of older men, whose employment rates had fallen sharply since the 1970s. Examination of both the history of retirement and less favourable underlying economic trends suggested that extending the working lives of older men might not be easy.
Source: John MacNicol, 'Older men and work in the twenty-first century: what can the history of retirement tell us?', Journal of Social Policy, Volume 37 Issue 4
Links: Abstract
Date: 2008-Oct
The Advocate General of the European Court of Justice advised against support for a challenge to the United Kingdom's compulsory retirement age of 65.
Source: The Incorporated Trustees of the National Council on Ageing (Age Concern England) v Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, Advocate General/European Court of Justice (00 352 43031) 23 September 2008
Links: Opinion | EHRC press release | Age Concern press release | TUC press release | EFA press release | CIPD press release | Personnel Today report | Guardian report | People Management report
Date: 2008-Sep
Researchers examined relationships between men's and women's life-course experiences and their employment trajectories between the ages of 50 and 70, using the British Household Panel Survey and the ONS Longitudinal Study. They looked at the effects on employment after 50 of both earlier life-course events (such as educational achievement, labour market entry, and family formation) and later life determinants (such as health and disability, individual pension savings and pension entitlements, and job characteristics such as physical strains and job autonomy). They compared the importance of early and later life factors, and also investigated how early lifecourse events acted indirectly through their influence on later life determinants of employment exit.
Source: Morten Blekesaune, Mark Bryan and Mark Taylor, Life-course Events and Later-life Employment, Research Report 502, Department for Work and Pensions (0113 399 4040)
Date: 2008-Jun
Researchers examined the relationship between work and health among older men. Exposure to work-related and work-caused ill-health had consequences for life expectancy and chronic disease in older age.
Source: Gillian Granville and Maria Evandrou, Older Men, Work and Health: Reviewing the evidence, The Age and Employment Network (020 7843 1590)
Links: Report | TAEN press release
Date: 2008-Jan
