Making the case for older workers

Abstract

IntroductionLabour market age barriers are in sharp focus across most industrialized nations and in Europe and East Asia in particular as public policymakers, concerned with the economic effects of population ageing, have moved to encourage longer working lives. Many affected nations will experience a substantial ageing and, simultaneously, shrinking of their workforces, bringing to the fore the issue of managing older workers. In combination with declining birth rates, the retirement of a large cohort of 'baby boomers' is expected to reduce the supply of skilled workers, contribute to a lowering of workforce participation rates, and raise dependency ratios. Addressing workforce ageing issues has thus become critical to many of these nations' economic performance. Governments needing to improve labour force participation rates of older workers have utilized various means, such as changing employer attitudes (Sonnet, Olsen, & Manfredi, 2014).Accordingly, among most industrialized and some middle-income nations, there is public policy interest in the prolongation of working lives (OECD, 2006). Germany and Japan are noteworthy contexts where efforts are underway to foster a new working life course focused on workforce participation at older ages. In both nations, the extension of working lives to capitalize on productivity into advanced age has become central in public policy discourses and labour market measures. While the industrial structures of Germany and Japan share many similarities, the policy approaches to late- and post-career work differ, particularly in formal phased retirement, or bridge retirement, programs. Largely gone from the policy makers toolkit in Germany, as in other industrialized ageing contexts, is early retirement, which in the 1980s was a much used tool for the management of labour supply, but has now been superseded by increasing efforts to push out the final date of labour market withdrawal (Vargas, Fric, Curtarelli, Feifs, & Weber, 2013; Walker & Naegele, 2009). In Japan also efforts have been underway for some time to promote the concept of longer working lives to business (Yamada & Higo, 2015). Underpinning these shifts has been an increasing emphasis on the promotion of 'age management' (Walker, 2005).Alongside the efforts of these governments some employers, particularly large ones, are pursuing a business agenda of recruiting, retaining and rehiring older workers. This is occurring in Germany and Japan, as well as other contexts, in response to a range of factors, including but not limited to the following four, that stem from workforce ageing. Firstly, there appears to be a greater demand from older workers themselves for more opportunities to continue working for longer in quality jobs (Dittrich, Busch, & Micheel, 2011; Oka, 2013). Partly, as exemplified by the case of Germany, the desire to work on is generated by insufficient retirement incomes (Fasang, 2012), an issue that is particularly acute for older single women and one that is complicated by failing health, poor work conditions and a lack of quality jobs (Pleau, 2010; Zimmer, Leve, & Naegele, 2010). Secondly, generally improved health among older people means that they are assumed to be more readily able to continue working longer (Buckley, O'Dwyer, Tucker, Adams, Wittert, & Hugo, 2013; Zhan, Wang, Liu, & Shultz, 2009). Thirdly, advances in technology and workplace design may enable older workers, including those with a disability, to continue working to later ages (Brooke, Taylor, McLoughlin, & Di Biase, 2013). Fourthly, there is a concern among employees and their employers for greater work life balance in order to, for example, fit in caring and other responsibilities with paid employment (Loretto & Vickerstaff, 2013; Nikolova & Graham, 2014; Sweet, PittCatsouphes, Besen, & Golden, 2014).Large organizations in Germany and Japan offer best practice examples of employer behaviour in recruiting, retaining and rehiring older workers. …