Understanding the Aging Workforce: Defining a Research Agenda

Abstract

Over the past decades, considerable research has been devoted to generating a better understanding of the impact of the aging population and workforce. At the request of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened the Committee on Understanding the Aging Workforce and Employment at Older Ages (the Committee), an interdisciplinary panel of scholars, to assess what is known about the aging workforce in the United States, identify gaps in current knowledge and data infrastructure, and make recommendations for future research and data collection efforts. This symposium presents the findings of the Committee’s forthcoming report Understanding the Aging Workforce: Defining A Research Agenda. The symposium is designed to highlight important research findings from the Committee’s report and outline a new research agenda that is focused on further elucidating the heterogeneity of older workers’ experiences and outcomes and identifying the role of workplaces in enabling and constraining work behaviors at older ages. To this end, the discussant will demonstrate how the conclusions reached by the four presentations together reveal a future research agenda and the methodological and data infrastructure needed to make this research agenda a reality. Work and Retirement Pathways: A New Conceptual Framework Presenter: Mo Wang; U. of Florida A Life Course Perspective on Inequity in Work and Retirement Presenter: Emma Aguila; U. of Southern California The Effect of Workplace Practices on the Employment Decisions of Older Workers Presenter: Peter B. Berg; Michigan State U. Age Discrimination: Several Anomalies in Search of Some Answers Presenter: Susan Fiske; Princeton U.