Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

With regard to personnel policy towards older workers, I proposed two contradictory
hypotheses (see section 2.2.). I supported hypothesis 2A with regard to recruitment (older
applicants are treated as a ´problem group´) and employee exit (older workers are used as a
buffer for personnel adjustments). Hypothesis 2B is supported with regard to health and
integration management (the policy differs with regard to persons with diminished work
capacity, but is not directly linked with the age criterion). Neither hypothesis was supported
in the field of further training, as no uniform pattern of employer action has emerged in
terms of integration or exclusion of older workers.
Hypothesis 3 (see section 2.2.) is not supported in the field of recruitment, further
training and health and integration management and supported in the field of exit policy
only with regard to the economic position of the firm. As it seems, the economic standing of
the firm is a driver for externalisation strategies towards older workers at the end of the
working life. Respective strategies are intensified when a necessity to conduct labour
shedding arises. That confirms the firm-structural approach (Kohli et al. 1983) and Mares´
(2001) assumption derived from a combination of the ´varieties of capitalism´ and ´varieties
of welfare state regimes´ approach. The firm-structural approach helps explain why there is
a discrepancy between the policy of state actors and its insufficient trickling-down to
company level. Also my firm examples demonstrated that employer action runs contrary to
the policy direction set by the Polish state actors and by the EU.
The age structure of the workforce does not determine corporate policies towards older
workers in neither field of company policy (however, that could not be assessed with regard
to further training due to incomplete information). Firms with older and younger age
structures are uniform in their mostly externalisation-orientated or negligent policy towards
older workers.
Hypothesis 4 (see section 2.3.) is supported with restrictions. Only the intermingling of
structural and institutional factors brings about the specific pattern of early exit in Poland.
The incentives in the pension system play a role as pull levers of early exit to a greater
extent in periods of downsizing. Moreover, even if the pull factors lose their power (e.g.
diminishing level of pre-retirement benefits), push factors move older workers to leave the
firm in a rather involuntary way, although with some decision latitude given by the
employer (workers decide to exit early for fear of unemployment should early exit vehicles
deteriorate even further). Another push factor with interacts with the institutional factors is
the nature of work – persons working in health-harming conditions are more willing to exit
early (as I assume, even in the absence of an entitlement to early retirement in ´special´
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