Job Satisfaction Declines in Late Work Life – A Time-to-Retirement Approach

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg Henning ◽  
Graciela Muniz-Terrera ◽  
Andreas Stenling ◽  
Martin Hyde
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Time Trends ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Late Work ◽  
Aging Society ◽  
German Socioeconomic Panel ◽  
Linear Decline

Job satisfaction has previously been found to increase across the life span. However, few studies have focused on the very last years of working life. We applied a time-to-retirement approach to job satisfaction and investigated change in job satisfaction in the ten years before retirement in the German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP, n = 2,619). Job satisfaction showed a small non-linear decline as people approached retirement. An older retirement age was associated with lower job satisfaction before retirement, but not with change before retirement. Because the GSOEP spans from 1984 until 2019, we were able to investigate historical time trends. Overall levels of pre-retirement job satisfaction seem to have decreased since the mid-1980s, but intra-individual declines before retirement seem to have become smaller. Further analyses showed the association between job satisfaction and life satisfaction declined when people were nearing retirement. This may be a sign of disengagement from work and a shift of focus to other areas of life in preparation for retirement. Our results show the usefulness of a time-to-retirement approach and the importance of taking the last work years into account when discussing the satisfaction and motivation of older workers in an aging society.

scholarly journals Swedish Collective Agreements and Employers’ Willingness to Hire and Retain Older Workers in Employment

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carin Ulander-Wänman
Keyword(s):  
Older Workers ◽  
Total Population ◽  
Working Hours ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Elderly Persons ◽  
Older Employees ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
The Eu

Demographic change is transforming the EU population structure for the coming decades. One challenge that society faces is to preserve social welfare when elderly persons comprise a larger proportion of the total population. Allowing people to work beyond the current retirement age may help slow the growth of the maintenance burden for welfare costs, and creating situations where larger numbers of older employees can work longer and complete more working hours can improve conditions for preserving and developing welfare. However, a prolonged working life presupposes several conditions; one of these is that legal regulation of the labor market must support employers’ willingness to hire and retain older workers in employment. This article explores employers’ attitudes toward regulations in Swedish collective agreements—regulations which are of particular importance if employers are to increase hiring and retention of older workers in employment.

scholarly journals Employees’ Longer Working Lives in Europe: Drivers and Barriers in Companies

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 1658
Author(s):  
Andrea Principi ◽  
Jürgen Bauknecht ◽  
Mirko Di Rosa ◽  
Marco Socci
Keyword(s):  
Working Conditions ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Early Retirement ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
European Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
Market Factors ◽  
Legal Retirement Age

This paper identifies, within companies’ sectors of activity, predictors of Human Resource (HR) policies to extend working life (EWL) in light of increasing policy efforts at the European level to extend working life. Three types of EWL practices are investigated: the prevention of early retirement (i.e., encouraging employees to continue working until the legal retirement age); delay of retirement (i.e., encouraging employees to continue working beyond the legal retirement age); and, recruitment of employees who are already retired (i.e., unretirement). A sample of 4624 European organizations that was stratified by size and sector is analyzed in six countries. The main drivers for companies’ EWL practices are the implementation of measures for older workers to improve their performance, their working conditions, and to reduce costs. In industry, the qualities and skills of older workers could be more valued than in other sectors, while the adoption of EWL practices might be less affected by external economic and labor market factors in the public sector. Dutch and Italian employers may be less prone than others to extend working lives. These results underline the importance of raising employers’ awareness and increase their actions to extend employees’ working lives by adopting age management initiatives, especially in SMEs, and in the services and public sectors.

scholarly journals The Analysis of Predictors of Retirement Preferences over Time

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Pilipiec ◽  
Wim Groot ◽  
Milena Pavlova
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Pension System ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
University Education ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Net Income ◽  
Demographic Ageing ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Due to rapid demographic ageing and to sustain its pension system, the Netherlands recently initiated a pension reform that increased the retirement age, with the intention to increase labour force participation among older workers. However, there is little evidence on the preferences of workers concerning their retirement age, and on how these preferences have changed over time. To identify personal and work-related determinants of the preference toward earlier or later retirement, and how these determinants and preferences have changed over time. We use data from three consecutive measurements (waves) of a large Dutch panel. Ordered logit regression is used to investigate the predictors of retirement preferences. Analyses are performed for two groups; all workers and a subsample of workers aged 50 years or older. Furthermore, the analyses are performed for each wave separately and for the combined dataset. A preference for later retirement is primarily related to university education, high job satisfaction, and high income. Age is only positively related to later retirement among older workers. Earlier retirement is preferred by female workers and workers living with a partner. The preference toward an earlier retirement age has increased over time. The preferences toward retirement can be primarily explained by personal characteristics, job satisfaction, and net income. Furthermore, with the increase in the retirement age defined by current legislation, the preference for an earlier retirement age has increased over time.

scholarly journals The Netherworld between Work and Retirement

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael McGann ◽  
Helen Kimberley ◽  
Dina Bowman ◽  
Simon Biggs
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Major Theme ◽  
Narrative Interviews ◽  
Social Gerontology ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Part Time

A major theme within social gerontology is how retirement ‘is being re-organised, if not undone’. Institutional supports for retirement are weakening, with pension ages rising in many countries. Increasing numbers of older workers are working past traditional retirement age on a part-time or self-employed basis, and a growing minority are joining the ranks of the long-term unemployed. Drawing upon narrative interviews with older Australians who are involuntarily non-employed or underemployed, this article explores how the ‘unravelling’ of retirement is experienced by a group of older workers on the periphery of the labour market. While policy makers hope that higher pension ages will lead to a longer period of working life, the risk is that older workers, especially those experiencing chronic insecurity in the labour market, will be caught in a netherworld between work and retirement.

scholarly journals Swedish Collective Agreements and Employers’ Willingness to Hire and Retain Older Workers in Employment

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Carin Ulander-Wänman
Keyword(s):  
Older Workers ◽  
Total Population ◽  
Working Hours ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Elderly Persons ◽  
Older Employees ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
The Eu

Demographic change is transforming the EU population structure for the coming decades. One challenge that society faces is to preserve social welfare when elderly persons comprise a larger proportion of the total population. Allowing people to work beyond the current retirement age may help slow the growth of the maintenance burden for welfare costs, and creating situations where larger numbers of older employees can work longer and complete more working hours can improve conditions for preserving and developing welfare. However, a prolonged working life presupposes several conditions; one of these is that legal regulation of the labor market must support employers’ willingness to hire and retain older workers in employment. This article explores employers’ attitudes toward regulations in Swedish collective agreements—regulations which are of particular importance if employers are to increase hiring and retention of older workers in employment.

scholarly journals Older workers’ evaluations of the political goal to extend working life: Discursive approach to the “attitude problem”

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 236-254
Author(s):  
Miira Niska ◽  
Pirjo Nikander
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Population Ageing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Individual Preferences ◽  
Working Lives

Population ageing presents major challenges to the welfare system across the European Union. Consequently, emphasizing delayed retirement age and extended working lives abound in political discussions. Researchers have recognized numerous problems, which make the extended working life a challenging political task. One of these problems are citizens’ negative attitudes toward delayed retirement and extended working life. In this paper, we approach this “attitude problem” from the perspective of discursive social psychology and analyze the variation in the way aspirations to extend working lives are evaluated by older workers. The data analyzed in the study consists of interviews where participants between 50 and 65 years of age comment on the political goal to extend working lives. The article sheds light on the “attitude problem” by turning the attention from underlying individual preferences to discursive resources used to undermine the political goal and the situational functions these evaluative practices have.

Werkwaarden van laagopgeleide oudere werknemers

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Gründemann ◽  
Jan Fekke Ybema ◽  
Jos Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Older Workers ◽  
Work Values ◽  
Secondary Analysis ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Dutch Government ◽  
Large Database ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Oudere Werknemers ◽  
Extrinsic Work Values

Work values of low-skilled older workers Work values of low-skilled older workers Recently, the Dutch government raised the retirement age of workers in the Netherlands. In this study we focused on the work values of low-skilled older workers, the extent to which their jobs fulfill these values, and the effect of work values on the willingness of these workers to extend their working life. This study is based on a literature review and a secondary analysis on a large database of persons aged 45 and older (STREAM). The study shows that extrinsic work values are more important for low-skilled older workers, and intrinsic work values more relevant for high-skilled older workers. The most important work values for low-skilled older workers are fulfilled slightly more often than those of high-skilled older workers. The extent to which important work values are fulfilled in the jobs of low-skilled older workers is positively correlated with job satisfaction and with their own assessment of whether or not to continue working for another 12 months. Based on this research, we formulated recommendations for HR practices on the employability of low-skilled older workers.

Retirement - Not Necessarily a Farewell to Work Life

2012 ◽  
pp. 87-98
Author(s):  
Anne Inga Hilsen ◽  
Robert Salomon
Keyword(s):  
Older Workers ◽  
Pension Reform ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Managerial Practices ◽  
Three Phase ◽  
Social Link ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Life Work

Due to financial and demographic reasons, many countries are trying to increase the actual retirement age. Pension reforms are taking place in countries such as France, Greece and the UK. Norway has recently introduced a new pension reform from January 1st 2011 to encourage longer work life careers. These reforms may lead to a variety of options on life/work balance choices at the later stages of working life. Based on earlier studies, the article illustrate the identification of a three overlapping phases of good managerial practices and worker responses affecting the employment of older workers by developing an analytical model ("a three phase perspective on senior policies") of organisational orientations towards older workers. This paper focuses on a possible fourth phase at the end of the working career as well as the transition from work to retirement. The fourth phase consists of both an economic and a social link between employer and employee.

scholarly journals Wydłużenie aktywności zawodowej czy przejście na emeryturę? Studium mikroekonomiczne

2014 ◽  
pp. 7-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justyna Wiktorowicz
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Equal Opportunities ◽  
Individual Decisions

The ageing of societies has recently become one the most important phenomena shaping social policy in Poland and other developed countries. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear that ageing should not be perceived only in terms of threats. Silver economy, age management, and lifelong learning are the notions that become acknowledged by various labour market and social policy stakeholders. The rationale behind these ideas is to make the best use of the potential of people around the retirement, in line with the life cycle concept, but also of new social needs that arise with an increasing proportion of people aged 50+ in the society, and with considerably improving quality of their lives. The discussion presented in the article is limited to problems in extending working life of Poles. The aim of this paper is analysis of the factors influencing the extension of the working life in Poland, from an individual perspective, i.e. by looking at the reasons of individual decisions of people close to the retirement age. The article is both theoretical and empirical in nature, presenting a review of studies including the support for the economic activity of “older” workers, coupled with the outcomes of a statistical analysis carried out in the project „Equal opportunities in the labour market for people aged 50+”.

Factors Associated with Employment Status in Later Working Life

1994 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul R. Jackson ◽  
Philip E. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Employment Status ◽  
Early Retirement ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Adult Males ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Factors Associated

This article reports on factors affecting the withdrawal of older workers from the labour market associated with unemployment, premature retirement and retirement at 65 years of age. Longitudinal data from three interviews with 175 adult males are examined; and findings show a process of psychological withdrawal from the labour market reflecting changes in personal identity which occur prior to reaching the formal retirement age, most strongly for those without heavy financial commitments. For most of those interviewed, retirement was a preferred option to unemployment, and allowed them to regain control over their lives. Older workers whose financial needs keep them in the employment market are doubly disadvantaged since they cannot select the route of early retirement and find it much harder to compete with younger people.

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