Employees’ Longer Working Lives in Europe: Drivers and Barriers in Companies

Abstract

This paper identifies, within companies’ sectors of activity, predictors of Human Resource (HR) policies to extend working life (EWL) in light of increasing policy efforts at the European level to extend working life. Three types of EWL practices are investigated: the prevention of early retirement (i.e., encouraging employees to continue working until the legal retirement age); delay of retirement (i.e., encouraging employees to continue working beyond the legal retirement age); and, recruitment of employees who are already retired (i.e., unretirement). A sample of 4624 European organizations that was stratified by size and sector is analyzed in six countries. The main drivers for companies’ EWL practices are the implementation of measures for older workers to improve their performance, their working conditions, and to reduce costs. In industry, the qualities and skills of older workers could be more valued than in other sectors, while the adoption of EWL practices might be less affected by external economic and labor market factors in the public sector. Dutch and Italian employers may be less prone than others to extend working lives. These results underline the importance of raising employers’ awareness and increase their actions to extend employees’ working lives by adopting age management initiatives, especially in SMEs, and in the services and public sectors.

Factors Influencing Retirement Decisions among Blue-Collar Workers in a Global Manufacturing Company—Implications for Age Management from A System Perspective

“…Several Swedish respondents in this study had access to the early retirement program, and most of them planned to take advantage of it, even though they said they felt healthy enough to continue working longer. Even though parttime retirement seem to have a positive outcome on keeping industrial employees in work beyond retirement age [40], agreements that enable people to stop working earlier may not encourage them to stay longer in the company [16,41]. However, such an agreement will likely be beneficial for the individuals' health as pensioners.…”

“…However, such an agreement will likely be beneficial for the individuals' health as pensioners. Age management interventions that include individually tailored work, such as part-time retirement, could be strategic to keep older workers and their competence within the company [24,40]. Among the respondents were also people with immigrant backgrounds who had not been living in Sweden long enough to be able to benefit from the local retirement program.…”

Retirement transitions in the 21st century: A scoping review of the changing nature of retirement in Europe

“…Besides flexible conditions and structures, age management is highlighted by some studies as being essential in promoting EAR (Principi et al 2020). A Swedish qualitative study highlighted the introduction of age management in the workplace as important for retaining older workers (Blomé et al 2018).…”

Special Issue on “Advances in Socio-Economic Research on Ageing”

“…Within the vast topic of active ageing, two of the presented articles focus on specific aspects of employment in later life. The paper by Andrea Principi and colleagues concerns the management of ageing workers by highlighting the different human resource policies at different companies aimed at lengthening the working lives of older employees [ 5 ]. Using data from a large European study involving companies from six countries, three types of approaches are identified: the prevention of early retirement; the delay of retirement; and the recruitment of employees who are already retired.…”