A paper estimated that the 'unretirement' rate (where people moved from retirement back into employment) was 5.11 per cent for men and 2.70 per cent for women in England. Age, education, financial planning, unanticipated increases in debt, and spouse and time effects played an important role in the decision to unretire.
Source: Ricky Kanabar, Unretirement in England: An empirical perspective, Discussion Paper 12/31, Department of Economics, University of York
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-Dec
A paper said that older workers in Europe who were employed in unskilled and manual occupations, and those working in certain service sectors, risked suffering more from poor working conditions than other employees.
Source: Patricia Vendramin and Gerard Valenduc, Occupations and Ageing at Work: An analysis of the findings of the fifth European Working Conditions Survey, Working Paper 2012.09, European Trade Union Institute
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-Oct
A report examined how national social security/welfare institutions participated in the definition/implementation of policies promoting longer working lives in Europe. Social protection policies in Europe contributed significantly to active ageing policies related to the promotion of longer working lives – for example, by setting a higher statutory pension age or making access to a decent pension more difficult.
Source: Jean-Philippe Lhernould, Social Protection/Social Security Aspects of Active Ageing, MISSOC Analysis 2012/1, Mutual Information System on Social Protection/Social Security
Links: Report
Date: 2012-Sep
Researchers examined how people actually make decisions on when and how to retire. A significant proportion of people expressed an interest in extending their working lives, many of them wanting a change in working hours and placing a high value on choice and flexibility over hours worked. People were more disposed to react to options they were presented with, for example by employers or by the government, in terms of pensions and choices over their date/manner of retirement. Situational influences played an important role in decision-making and behaviour.
Source: Andrew Weyman, David Wainwright, Rachel O'Hara, Philip Jones, and Alan Buckingham, Extending Working Life: Behaviour change interventions, Research Report 809, Department for Work and Pensions
Date: 2012-Sep
A paper examined paid work beyond retirement age in Germany and the United Kingdom. Particular attention was paid to the socio-economic status of people working past retirement, compared with those who did not work. In terms of institutional settings, the countries represented opposing cases.
Source: Simone Scherger, Steffen Hagemann, Anna Hokema, and Thomas Lux, Between Privilege and Burden: Work past retirement age in Germany and the UK, Working Paper 04/2012, Centre for Social Policy (University of Bremen)
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-Sep
A report examined older workers' experiences of accessing and using flexible working. Flexible working was useful for a variety of reasons, but accessing it was often far from easy. Line managers were slow to accept that flexible working could bring benefits to both parties, leaving older workers reluctant to ask their employer for flexibility. The report called on the government to go further than extending the right to request to all employees, and to make all jobs 'flexible by default' by 2020. This would allow individuals to assume that they could work flexibly unless the employer could prove otherwise.
Source: Christopher Brooks with Jose Iparraguirre, A Means to Many Ends: Older workers' experiences of flexible working, Age UK
Links: Report
Date: 2012-Sep
An article examined whether improvements in the health of elderly people in European countries could compensate for population ageing on the supply side of the labour market. In the scenarios considered, improvements in health and progress in preventing disability would not, by themselves, compensate for the ageing of the workforce. However, coupled with a positive migration balance, at the level and with the age structure assumed in official population projections, these developments could ease the effect of population ageing on labour supply.
Source: Magdalena Muszynska and Roland Rau, 'The old-age healthy dependency ratio in Europe', Journal of Population Ageing, Volume 5 Number 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Aug
A think-tank report said that there was a strong desire for longer working lives, and also a strong need – particularly for those on low-to-middle incomes. It identified six key barriers that needed to be overcome to support greater employment among the over-50s: a lack of adequate financial incentives to remain in, or return to, work; a lack of employment support to move back into work, including training; significant caring responsibilities; limited access to flexible working opportunities; continued prevalent age discrimination; and poor health.
Source: Giselle Cory, Unfinished Business: Barriers and opportunities for older workers, Resolution Foundation
Links: Report | Resolution press release | Guardian report | People Management report
Date: 2012-Aug
A report examined how ready Jobcentre Plus was to support people in their sixties to find employment. Older claimants could face a range of age-related barriers to employment, and further enhancements could be made to provision and support that specifically targeted some of these barriers. There was low awareness among older claimants of changes being made to state pension age, state pension equalization for men and women, and the related impacts on the benefit system: Jobcentre Plus advisers said that they would welcome additional training on the implications of these changes, so that they were better able inform and advise older claimants.
Source: Andrea Kirkpatrick, How Ready Is Jobcentre Plus to Help People in their 60s Find Work?, In-House Research 11, Department for Work and Pensions
Links: Report
Date: 2012-Jul
A report said that governments in developed countries would need to raise retirement ages gradually to address increasing life expectancy, in order to ensure that their national pension systems were both affordable and adequate.
Source: OECD Pensions Outlook 2012, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Links: Report | OECD press release
Date: 2012-Jun
Date: 2012-Jun
An article said that employees had previously received relatively favourable treatment from employers in their later careers, as a result of a long-term employment relationship that employers maintained for motivational purposes. But changes in costs, competition, and technologies had affected motivational policy, leading employers to renege on the implicit bargain with older employees.
Source: Michael White, 'Older employees under pressure? Theorizing reasons for declining commitment', Work, Employment and Society, Volume 26 Number 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Jun
A report examined employment trends for older workers in Europe, and the development of age-management policy at company and national level – before, during, and after the global recession.
Source: Employment Trends and Policies for Older Workers in the Recession, European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions
Links: Report
Date: 2012-May
A briefing paper said that older workers were an important part of the workforce of modern societies, and that their numbers would increase in coming decades. Better health and life expectancy of older workers improved their opportunities to enhance an age-friendly society. However, a good working life was an important prerequisite for older workers to remain active and to ensure that society benefited from their strengths and talents. Investments in active ageing needed to be secured during the working years, including investments in occupational health and safety.
Source: Juhani Ilmarinen, Promoting Active Ageing in the Workplace, European Agency for Safety and Health at Work
Links: Briefing
Date: 2012-Apr
The Supreme Court ruled against a former equity partner in a firm of solicitors, who had brought an age discrimination case against his firm for making him retire at the age of 65. It said that the retiring of partners was a 'legitimate business aim' so that younger solicitors at the firm could take up their places in the partnership and so that the firm could retain talented lawyers who might otherwise move elsewhere to gain promotion. Compulsory retirement was 'a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim'. However, the Court remitted the case back to the employment tribunal to decide whether choosing the age of 65 for retirement was proportionate, since there was no evidential basis for assuming that performance would drop off at that age.
Source: Seldon v Clarkson Wright and Jakes (A Partnership), UKSC 16 (2012), United Kingdom Supreme Court
Links: Judgement | CBI press release | CIPD press release | EHRC press release | Guardian report
Date: 2012-Apr
The Court of Appeal ruled that an employer could legally dismiss an employee before they reached a certain age, in order to avoid incurring additional pension liabilities. A desire to save money was sufficient to make the dismissal 'proportionate' in law.
Source: Woodcock v Cumbria Primary Care Trust, Court of Appeal 22 March 2012
Links: Judgement | Telegraph report
Date: 2012-Mar
A paper examined the fact that European countries with high senior employment rates had the highest levels of job satisfaction despite an older and more physically limited workforce. This paradox could be explained by heterogeneous levels of job quality: better working conditions might enable older workers with disabilities to remain satisfied and employed. Improved job quality was a major factor in successful active ageing strategies.
Source: Catherine Pollak, Employed and Happy Despite Weak Health? Labour market participation and job quality of older workers with disabilities, Working paper 45, Institut de Recherche et Documentation en Economie de la Sante (Paris)
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-Mar
An article examined the hypothesis that employees aged over 65 were disproportionately segregated into less desired 'Lopaq' occupations (low paid, often part-time, and requiring few qualifications), based on a comparative study of the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Evidence from the latter suggested that the abolition of the default retirement age in the UK in 2011 would weaken 'Lopaq' occupational segregation after 65 more than voluntary commitments to age diversity.
Source: David Lain, 'Working past 65 in the UK and the USA: segregation into "Lopaq" occupations?', Work, Employment and Society, Volume 26 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Feb
New statistics showed that people were working longer than previously. The average age at which people left the labour market rose from 63.8 to 64.6 for men, and from 61.2 to 62.3 for women, between 2004 and 2010.
Source: Pension Trends (Chapters 2-4), Office for National Statistics
Links: Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | ONS press release | Guardian report | Telegraph report
Date: 2012-Feb
An article examined whether age was a predictor of inequalities in training. Men over 50 were found to be among those least likely to have been offered training by employers. There were other significant inequalities in participation, suggesting a polarization in access to jobs that offered opportunities for training and progression. Policies promoting 'active ageing' needed to challenge negative employer attitudes and acknowledge fundamental inequalities in access to skills.
Source: Jesus Canduela, Matthew Dutton, Steve Johnson, Colin Lindsay, Ronald W McQuaid, and Robert Raeside, 'Ageing, skills and participation in work-related training in Britain: assessing the position of older workers', Work, Employment and Society, Volume 26 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Feb
