The ‘Older Worker’ and the ‘Ideal Worker’: A Critical Examination of Concepts and Categorisations in the Rhetoric of Extending Working Lives

Krekula, Clary; Vickerstaff, Sarah

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-40985-2_2

Cited by 36 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 53 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…We adopt a social stratification perspective, and report aWLE by education and occupation, and their intersections with gender and region. Policies aimed at increasing the length of working life have raised concerns, as it has been argued that such policies might amplify existing inequalities between older workers, and ignore the needs of disadvantaged groups (e.g., Hess et al 2021;Krekula & Vickerstaff 2020;Fisher et al 2015). For instance, early retirement used to be an alternative to unemployment for low-qualified workers who lost their job before reaching the statutory retirement age.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The extension of late working life in Germany: trends, inequalities, and the East-West divide

Dudel¹,

Loichinger²,

Klüsener³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The extension of late working life has been proposed as a potential remedy for the challenges of aging societies. For Germany, surprisingly little is known about trends and social inequalities in the length of late working life. Here, we use data from the German Microcensus to estimate working life expectancy from age 55 onwards for the 1941-1955 birth cohorts. We adjust our calculations of working life expectancy for working hours, and present results for western and eastern Germany by gender, education, and occupation. While working life expectancy has increased across cohorts, we find strong regional and socioeconomic disparities. Decomposition analyses show that among males, socioeconomic differences are predominantly driven by variation in employment rates; whereas among women, variation in working hours is also highly relevant. Older eastern German women have longer working lives than older western German women, which is likely attributable to the GDR legacy of high female employment.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The extension of late working life in Germany: trends, inequalities, and the East-West divide

Dudel¹,

Loichinger²,

Klüsener³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The extension of working lives is a key policy and public health priority in the western world. Linking public pension age to an averaged measure of life expectancy is more likely to increase the burden on already disadvantaged groups of older workers (Krekula and Vickerstaff 2020 ). Our findings show that older workers in manual work and those experiencing low vitality and high fatigue may suffer from an extension of working lives.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Current work-related and retirement-related policies focus on the average worker, without making any distinctions between workers in manual jobs and workers who no not face any physical strain in their work. This study might stimulate policy makers to consider the differences in the ways in which specific groups of older workers react to an increased retirement age, in order to develop inclusive and sensitive retirement-related policies (Krekula and Vickerstaff 2020 ). In any case, it is beneficial to provide older workers with effective interventions aimed at improving vitality and reducing fatigue.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do older manual workers benefit in vitality after retirement? Findings from a 3-year follow-up panel study

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Vitality is the feeling of physical and mental aliveness. Vitality benefits individual, organizational and societal well-being. However, we know much less about the dynamics in the levels of vitality and its’ precursors. This study investigates the effects of retirement on vitality and how this effect differs between manual and non-manual workers and by baseline levels of vitality. We used two waves of the NIDI Pension Panel Survey, collected in the Netherlands in 2015 and 2018. Data from 4156 older workers (N = 4156), of whom 1934 (46.5%) retired between waves, were analysed. Vitality is assessed in three ways, as: (1) a composite measure of vitality, and its subcomponents (2) energy and (3) fatigue. Conditional Change OLS Regression models demonstrated that retirement is associated with improved vitality and decreased fatigue. Older workers who retire from manual work at wave 1 experienced the largest gains in vitality and highest declines in fatigue at wave 2, compared to those who remained employed. Retirement was more advantageous for older workers who experienced poor vitality and high fatigue at wave 1. No such effects were found for energy. Older workers in manual work, those experiencing low vitality and high fatigue at wave 1, may benefit most from early retirement. Since opportunities for early retirement are highly restrictive, it is essential to provide these groups of workers with effective work accommodations and interventions that may not only improve their vitality and quality of working life, but also extend their participation in the labour market.

show abstract

“…The literature suggests that socioeconomic inequalities in extending working lives may rise over time, mainly due to progressing diversification in the probability of late and early exit (Carr 2019;Fasang 2012;Krekula and Vickerstaff 2020). Previous research provides solid ground to expect that higher educated are more likely to extend their working lives than lower-educated due to better workability and opportunities and that this trend will continue.…”

Section: Social Stratification Of Late-life Trajectoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The potential to work until older ages also differs between men and women, which is often not addressed in retirement policies (Ní Léime and Street 2016). The pressure to work longer increases, but recent pension reforms largely ignore heterogeneity in the potential to extend working lives (Krekula and Vickerstaff 2020;O'Rand and Henretta 1999). A unified and un-gendered approach, together with the growing unpredictability of the later lives and reduced welfare states' buffering function, may adversely affect socioeconomic inequalities at older ages (Carr 2019;Fasang 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender and Educational Inequalities in Extending Working Lives: Late-Life Employment Trajectories Across Three Decades in Seven Countries

Turek¹,

Henkens²,

Kalmijn³

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Public policies encourage later retirement, but they often do not account for discrepancies in the capacity for extending working lives. This paper studies trends and inequalities in extending working lives over the last three decades in a gender-specific and comparative perspective of seven countries (Australia, Germany, Russia, South Korea, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States). We apply latent class growth analysis to identify employment trajectories between 60 and 69 from 1990 to 2019. In particular, we focus on people who continue work till later ages and compare them with those who exit early and remain inactive through their 60s. Latent class regression models serve to measure gender differences, educational inequalities, and time trends. We find five universal trajectories: Late Employment, Standard, Early and Late Exit, and Non-Employment. Non-Employment dominated the 1990s, but it significantly declined, giving space to Late Employment as one of the major employment pathways. Gender and educational inequalities are considerable and stable. Progress toward later employment is universal for contemporary societies, however, we find vital differences between countries, which warns against generalizations of one-country findings. This study also contributes methodologically by exploring the trajectory-oriented perspective on late careers.

show abstract

The ‘Older Worker’ and the ‘Ideal Worker’: A Critical Examination of Concepts and Categorisations in the Rhetoric of Extending Working Lives

Cited by 36 publications

References 53 publications

The extension of late working life in Germany: trends, inequalities, and the East-West divide

The extension of late working life in Germany: trends, inequalities, and the East-West divide

Do older manual workers benefit in vitality after retirement? Findings from a 3-year follow-up panel study

Gender and Educational Inequalities in Extending Working Lives: Late-Life Employment Trajectories Across Three Decades in Seven Countries

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About