Struggles of Older Workers at the Labour Market

Abstract

IntroductionBalanced demographic development is one of the basic preconditions for successful development of any society. Current changes in demographic composition of population, especially in developed countries, pushed the issues of population development to the forefront of public attention and found their way into the interest of scientists, businesses, and politicians. Deceleration of population growth and subsequent population ageing bring in new challenges for economy, social policy and politics as a whole, and in general, it significantly influences overall development of both the country and the society (Svagzdiene, Kuklyte, 2016). Deepening population imbalance impacts economic growth, flow of investments, range and structure of consumption, labour market, pension system, and social, cultural and moral transfers between generations (Fuinhas et al., 2016).The phenomenon of population ageing is a result of long-term trends in reproductive behaviour in almost all the countries, and not necessarily only in developed ones (Nygârd et al., 2011; Wallin, Hussi, 2011;Kordos, Karbach, 2014).Therefore, there is an evident interest to the works on demographic development, and more attention today is paid to the current trends and possibilities of its regulation (Kate, 2013; Lisiankova and Wright, 2009). For example, much of the existing research on population aging has focused on its impacton developed countries, particularly those in Europe and North America. One study looked into how unequally population aging distributes risks in securing socio-economic resources for the wellbeing of individuals in later life between developed and developing countries (Higo, TA Khan, 2014). In another study, Gillion (1991) emphasizes that over the next 50 years almost all OECD countries will experience a dramatic ageing of their population structures. This process will become the burden, especially in terms of taxes or social security contributions, placed on active members of population (Skare, Siinkovic, 2016). This paper, which compares the potential developments in France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden and the USA, concludes with two, fairly obvious, caveats: first: countries most generous to their older generations are also the most vulnerable when it comes to facing the ageing problem; second: all those developments which might offset the consequences of ageing populations would also be capable to improve incomes and welfare even if the ageing problem did not exist (Gillion, 1991). Multiple studies have looked into trends in demographic developments and the issue of ageing population in the EU countries (BecerraAlonso et al., 2016; Carbonaro et al., 2016), Scotland (Lisenkova, Merette, 2014), Germany (Kluge, 2012), Serbia (Radivojevic et al., 2016), Australia (Hughes, 2016), etc.Demographic development in Slovakia is perceived in the context of global population development. Despite the fact that multiple demographic processes develop in Slovakia with some time delay, population problems faced by Slovakia are very much similar to those in Western developed countries (Bleha, Vaho, 2015). The singularities of demographic processes in Slovakia are influenced by lower levels of economic and social development, since demographic development in less developed countries differs from developed ones. However, the process of integration and gradual narrowing of the gap between the countries resulted in multiple economic and social processes, including demographic ones, starting to follow the same pattern as in developed countries (Androniceanu, 2015).Current demographic development is included in the research activities and reflections of expert community, and there are attempts to find the solutions for the problems it presents on various levels of societal hierarchy (Ilmarinen, 2009). Simultaneously, based on the current demographic situation, there is a multitude of analyses, projects, measures in social legislation, and changes in the pension and social security systems which are being implemented as a response to this issue. …