Professor Philip Taylor - Older workers in a sustainable society ...

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Defining public policy for older
workers: An ill-defined group
Professor Philip Taylor
Director of Research and Graduate Studies,
Monash University, Gippsland Campus
Older Workers in a Sustainable
Society
Oslo
June 2010
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Content
• Examines changes in work and retirement against a
background of population ageing.
• Reviews the status of policymaking concerned with age
and employment and how this needs to be adapted to
align with the needs of different individuals and societies.
• Considers trends in the employment of older workers, how
policymakers are envisioning a flexible end to working life
and their prospects of success.

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Older workers in context
• To understand the present situation of older workers some
context is required.
• Policy development since the late-1990s has been the of
prolongation of working lives, presented as a means of
reducing pressures on social welfare systems.
• Contrasts with previous approaches which focused on the
need to remove older workers from the labour market in
response to high unemployment.
• In the 1980s and 1990s the restructuring of industrialised
economies was accompanied by a dramatic fall in labour
force participation among older workers.

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The labour market and older workers
• Research points to the disadvantaged status of older workers
in the labour markets of the industrialised economies. Their
position is summarised in a review of OECD countries:
– Labour market mobility in terms of new hires is lower for older
workers.
– While rates of job loss are similar for younger and older workers,
the latter are more prone to experience long-term unemployment.
– A shift to economic inactivity is generally permanent across older
age groups (OECD 2006).
• On the other hand, after decades of increasingly early labour
market withdrawal, important changes have been underway.

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Employment/population ratios, men and
women aged 55-64, 1979-2008
Men
Women
1979 1983 1990 1995 2000 2008 1979 1983 1990 1995 2000 2008
Australia 67.4 59.6 59.2 55.3 58.3 65.7 19.8 19.9 24.2 27.4 35.3 49.1
Finland 54.3 51.4 46.3 34.9 43.7 57 39.0 44.1 39.7 33.1 40.9 55.8
Germany 63.2 57.4 52.0 47.2 46.4 61.7 26.8 24.0 22.4 24.4 29.0 46
Netherlands 63.2 46.1 44.5 39.9 49.9 60.2 14.0 13.2 15.8 18.0 25.8 41.1
Japan 81.5 80.5 80.4 80.8 78.4 81.4 44.8 45.1 46.5 47.5 47.9 51.7
UK - 64.3 62.4 56.1 59.8 67.7 - - 36.7 39.3 41.4 49
USA 70.8 65.2 65.2 63.6 65.7 67.7 40.4 39.4 44.0 47.5 50.6 57
EU-15 - - 52.3 47.2 48.9 56 - - 24.3 25.6 28.4 38.9
Source: OECD Employment Outlook (various)

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New consensus on ‘active ageing’
• Emerging consensus around the notion of ‘active ageing’,
defined by the WHO (2002) as ‘the process of optimizing
opportunities for health, participation and security in order to
enhance quality of life as people age’.
• According to the OECD (1998), this requires:
‣ emphasising prevention, making policy interventions at an
earlier life stage, reducing the need for later remedial action
‣ less fragmented actions, concentrated at critical transition
points in life
‣ and enabling less constrained choices and greater
responsibility at the level of individuals.

The Times, 12 May 2006, p.28

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Life course perspectives on working longer
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The Life Course Perspective
Fundamental principles characterize the life course approach:
1. socio-historical and geographical context
2. timing of lives
3. heterogeneity or variability
4. ‘linked lives’ and social ties to others
5. human agency and personal control and
6. how the past shapes the future.

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Socio-historical and geographical context
• Individual developmental pathways embedded in and
transformed by conditions and events occurring during the
historical period and their geographical location e.g.
geopolitical events, economic cycles, and social and cultural
ideologies shape perceptions and choices.

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Timing of lives
3 types: individual, generational, and historical
• Individual time - periods of life, such as childhood, adolescence, and old
age, and access to roles and rights in society; based on culturally shared
definitions.
• Generational time - age groups or cohorts, based upon their age e.g. baby
boom generation.
• Historical time - societal or large-scale changes or events and how these
affect individuals and families e.g. political and economic changes, war
and technological innovation.

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Heterogeneity or variability
• Recognition of not only modal or average developmental and transitional
trends, but also variability.
• Generations or cohorts not homogeneous, differ on critical dimensions
e.g. gender, social-economic group, family structure, ethnicity.
• Ability to adapt to life course events varies with the resources or supports
inherent in these elements in the form of economic or cultural capital (e.g.
wealth, education) or social capital (e.g. family social support).
• Increasing variability associated with ageing. Longer lives bring with them
greater exposure to factors that affect the ageing process.

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Linked lives and social ties
• Lives are interdependent and reciprocally connected on different
levels. Societal and individual experiences linked thorough family and
networks of shared relationships.
• As a result, macro-level events e.g. economic recession, could affect
individual behaviours (e.g. forced to remain economically active), and
this can significantly affect other familial relationships e.g. caring
responsibilities.

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Human agency and personal control
• Individuals are active agents who not only mediate the effect of social
structures but also make decisions and set goals that shape their
biographies.
• Have the capacity to engage in planful competence, the thoughtful,
proactive, and self-controlled processes that underlie choices about
institutional involvements and social relationships.
• But, choices are influenced by opportunities and constraints.
• And individuals modify their expectations and behaviour in response to
changes in either needs or resources.

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The past shapes the future
• Life course choices, opportunities, and conditions affect later outcomes
which can be envisioned as ripple or domino effects.
• Occur at the cohort/generational level and the individual/familial level e.g.
one generation can transmit to the next the reverberations of the historical
circumstances that shaped its history (e.g. experiencing recession).
• Timing and conditions of life events and behaviours occur (e.g. job loss,
occupational injury) can set up a chain reaction of experiences for
individuals and their families (e.g. reproduction of poverty).
• Thus, the past can significantly affect later life outcomes and recognising the
role of cumulative advantage or disadvantage is valuable in considering
policymaking.

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Considering the life course from an labour
market perspective
• Destandardisation of transitions from school to old age.
• Changing skill demands and greater emphasis on ‘employability’.
• Labour market deregulation :
‣Decorporatisation of industrial relations.
‣Volatile labour market dynamics.
‣Core/periphery employment and the casualisation of work.
‣Internal labour markets versus contractual work.
• Changing institutional frameworks.
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New policies for older workers
Policy measures include:
– Closure of or limits on use of early retirement pathways
– Increasing retirement ages
– ‘Active’ labour market measures
– Rewards for pension deferral
– Ending mandatory retirement
– More flexible approach to retirement e.g. gradual retirement.
But, mixed evidence on the success of the various measures e.g.
– Ending mandatory retirement appears not to have been effective.
– Gradual retirement schemes appear to have had limited influence,
although early days in terms of evaluation.
– Gradual retirement schemes may even have promoted early retirement.
– Evidence of creaming, deadweight effects and occupational
downshifting.

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Flexible retirement or inflexible working
• Surveys find that older workers are willing to work on if they
can reduce or work flexible hours.
• But what are the realities of flexible working
• Flexibility may benefit some, but for others a gradual switch
from work to non-work is not an option.
• Data suggestive of significant constraints on older workers’
choices.
• Singular public policy position of one-way transitions from
full-time to part-time work and on to retirement is misguided,
perhaps driven by ageist assumptions.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
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Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
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Percent
February
Quarter 1978
February
Quarter 1983
February
Quarter 1988
February
Quarter 1993
February
Quarter 1998
February
Quarter 2003
February
Quarter 2008
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Underemployment Rates: Australia
Males by Age
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
M 15 - 24
M 25 - 34
M 35 - 44
M 45 - 54
M 55 and over
Quarter / Year

Percent
February
Quarter 1978
February
Quarter 1983
February
Quarter 1988
February
Quarter 1993
February
Quarter 1998
February
Quarter 2003
February
Quarter 2008
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Underemployment Rates: Australia
Females by Age
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
15 - 24
25 - 34
35 - 44
45 - 54
55 and over
4
2
0
Quarter / Year

Percent
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45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
1 to 12 Weeks
13 to 51 Weeks
52 Weeks and Over
0
15 - 19 20 - 24 25 - 34 35 - 44 45 - 54 55 years
and over
Age Group / Duration of Underemployment
Australian Underemployment Rates by Duration. Men by Age (Australian
Bureau of Statistics)
23

Percent
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60
50
40
30
20
1 to 12 Weeks
13 to 51 Weeks
52 Weeks and Over
10
0
15 - 19 20 - 24 25 - 34 35 - 44 45 - 54 55 years
and over
Age Group / Duration of Underemployment
Australian Underemployment Rates by Duration. Women by Age (Australian
Bureau of Statistics)
24

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Summary
• Policymaking has had a singular focus on delaying
retirement, ignoring the the diversity of older people’s
lived lives.
• Narrow economic imperatives are overriding wider
social ones such as the work/care nexus.
• Neglect of such scenarios risks exposing older
people to the now familiar problem of diminishing
opportunities and increasing constraints and with
them, reduced prospects for ‘active ageing’.
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New policies for older workers
• Realistic stance on older workers’ employment
– Extending working lives depends on a range of individual,
organisational, economic and societal factors and while
this may be achievable for some, for others it might be
remote.
• Integrated and strategic policymaking
– Need for a matrix of public policies which respond to the
heterogeneity of older people’s lives, not devise policy
according to chronological age.
• Preventative
– A shift to a life course approach, emphasising long-term
measures.

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Summary
• Integrated and strategic approaches aiming to produce sustainable
workforces and which move beyond a static view of older workers will:
‣ Support a diverse workforce to balance work and non-work
obligations.
‣ Be sensitive to the need to empower workers to remain competitive
over the long-term.
‣ Challenge age-based and other stereotypes, not reflect them.
‣ Accept that some workers’ lifecourse trajectories leave them illequipped
to compete in a modern economy.
‣ Take the long view, planning for the older workforce of the future.
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Thank you
Philip.taylor@adm.monash.edu.
au
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