Barriers and Willingness to Accept Re-Employment among Unemployed Senior Workers: The SeniorWorkingLife Study

Abstract

Labor market participation has a positive impact on social inclusion and is linked to financial security. This study identifies barriers and willingness to accept re-employment among unemployed seniors that could highlight opportunities for societal action. From the first wave of SeniorWorkingLife in 2018 combined with the Danish version of the International Standard Classification of Occupations register (ISCO), +50-year-old unemployed senior workers (n = 1682) were stratified into mainly seated work (ISCO 1–4) and mainly physical work (ISCO 5–9), respectively, in their latest employment. We used SurveyFreq and SurveyLogistics of SAS combined with model-assisted weights based on national registers to estimate representative frequencies and odds ratios (OR) for barriers and willingness to accept re-employment. Higher age was perceived as a general barrier for re-employment in both groups. Health was a more pronounced barrier for seniors with mainly physical work compared to seniors with mainly seated work (OR 2.35; CI95 1.31–4.21). Overall, seniors showed a large degree of flexibility and willingness to re-enter the labor market. Different barriers and willingness to accept re-employment exist among currently unemployed seniors. These results highlight the need for different approaches across occupational groups to help unemployed seniors back into the labor market.

Barriers and Facilitators of Re-Employment among Senior Workers: Prospective Cohort Study

“…In general, the vast majority stated that they would like to have a job. This is in line with previous research showing that the majority of unemployed seniors are flexible and willing to compromise by, e.g., accepting a different job in order to return to the labour market [ 19 ]. Not surprisingly, our results show that individuals having the desire to return to the labour market were significantly more likely to be re-employed.…”

Impacts of the social security programs on the employment status of informal labor in rural Vietnam

“…Moreover, if there is a large gap between the benefits of entrepreneurs and laborers, the support of these programs demonstrated by trade unions will contribute to reducing this gap and encouraging laborers to continue working. Besides, Kristina et al (2020) also show that employment status relates to barriers and willingness to accept re-employment, including factors such as another job function, different education, less responsibility, work time reduction, lower salary, below your competencies, higher transport time, and poorer working conditions. Furthermore, some studies give different arguments for the negative impact of social security programs on employment status.…”

“…">INTRODUCTIONSocial security programs have had a positive effect on reducing income inequality, increasing employment, and enhancing income and quality of life. Social security programs enable laborers to make the most of new opportunities in the labor market, help them with security and income, and remain in good health when moving to a new job with new skills (Kristina, Sundstrup, Skovlund, & Andersen, 2020). Besides, informal laborers are defined as those who work in informal jobs, referring to those who are not subject to national labor legislation, income taxation, entitlement to social protection, or certain other employment benefits.…”