Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

certain professions born after 1968, which should have been legislated by 2002, was passed
in December 2008 and is valid from January 2009.
5.2. Determinants at Establishment Level
In my studies at company level in Germany and Poland, I made out more barriers than
opportunities to a prolongation of working life. Managers and employee representatives in
many German and Polish firms still argue in the vein of the deficit thesis of old age and
adhere to stereotypes of aged workers as being less innovative, less productive and less able
in physical and cognitive respects. As a matter of fact, the change in older workers´
capabilities is not uni-directional (Lehr 2000; Naegele 1992) and inner-firm policies play a
crucial role for their preservation, e.g. with regard to learning ability (Frerichs 2007: 73-4).
Moreover, existing accounts of decreasing productivity in higher age brackets are linked
solely to physical capabilities (BmFSFJ 2005: 207-8), while the productivity of older
workers is subject to large inter-personal variance and decreases in singular capabilities are
to a large extent compensated for by the increase in experience (Semmer/Richter 2004).
However, in case of seniority systems in remuneration, the productivity-wage ratio for older
workers is negative (Gelderblom et al. 2006).
In the behavioural and social sciences, the deficit model has long been replaced by the
compensation model of Baltes and Baltes (1990). Moreover, it has been recognised that the
performance of older workers is not uniform for the whole cohort, but dependent on
personal and social factors, and also on the work environment (Becker 2008: 3-4). Still, in
many firms, managers and employee representatives perceive the deterioration of capacities
in the last third of the employment career as a given, which is either resolved with the help
of externalising older workers or by applying protective measures.
Albeit a preventive approach to age management is spreading, personnel policy in most
Polish and many German companies is characterised by a reactive stance and is lacking a
pro-active approach. E.g., in Polish companies, health care services are offered to workers,
but there is no focus on the prevention of work incapacity. In German companies, the
legislator obliges firms to integrate impaired workers, but few firms pay attention to
shaping work careers and workplaces in a way that burdens do not cumulate across the life
span. Further differences become evident when comparing health management in Polish
companies with that in German ones. Firstly, the focus in Polish firms is on the provision of
health care and on the prevention of accidents, and secondly, behavioural and relational
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