ExpertKennis
The working conditions of ageing workers (2008)
Bron: Grant Thornton Accountants en Adviseurs B.V.
Based on the results of the fourth European survey of working conditions, a report by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions identifies four means of action for the retention of senior citizens in employment: ensure their career and job security; maintain and promote workers’ health and welfare; develop skills; reconcile working l ife and private life. The results of the survey show that the improvement of working conditions not only helps prevent workers from leaving the job market early, but also helps ageing workers stay on the job longer. The study is based on the results for 31 countries, including the 27 Member States.
Conclusions
The secondary analysis of EWCS data outlined in this report has highlighted how age is an important factor in describing working conditions. For most job-related characteristics, significant differences emerge between younger and older workers. For instance, young workers are more exposed to physical risk factors at the workplace and are less satisfied with working conditions. On the other hand, they receive more training and are more involved in HPWOs. Conversely, older workers are more ‘protected’ from risk exposure, have a higher degree of autonomy in the workplace and a lower degree of work intensity. However, they have fewer opportunities with respect to involvement in new organisational forms, training and learning new things at work. Young and older workers both share a higher probability of being subjected to acts of discrimination at the workplace and, to a lesser extent, of experiencing difficulties in accessing IT. For their part, adult workers carry a heavier burden in relation to caring activities outside of work, as well as reporting a lower level of satisfaction with work–life balance.
Significance of
working conditions
In terms of age, the key target group concerns workers approaching retirement
age (45–54 years). It has emerged how important it is to monitor the working
conditions of this group of workers in particular in order to ascertain the
presence of factors that could determine their early exit from the labour
market. In fact, research on the issue of older workers’ employability has
highlighted how the low participation rates of older people in the labour
market are the result of a combination of factors – such as wages, rigidity in
workplace organisation, inadequate skills and competencies and poor health
status – rather than the wish to retire early (OECD, 2006). In this context, it
is also important to monitor the sustainability of work for the youngest
workers, who face a higher incidence of job insecurity and risk exposure.
At the same time, the
analysis has pointed to evidence implying that workers who are facing the worst
working conditions and are eligible to retire have probably left the labour
market.
Unfortunately, clear-cut evidence regarding this point cannot be derived from
the EWCS, as it does not record information on people no longer in employment.
However, the EWCS findings can give important clues regarding the sustainability of jobs across ages. In order to achieve the Lisbon and Stockholm targets, it is essential to keep workers in the labour market for a longer time. A prerequisite for this objective is improved job sustainability over the lifecycle. Such an objective encompasses different issues, including career and employment security, health and well-being, skills development and reconciliation of working and non-working life. All of these factors play a role in shaping the age structure of the workforce.
Older workers’
employment participation
In order to identify the role of the different aspects of working conditions in
determining older
people’s participation rates and to give a rough evaluation of how different
factors facilitate or hinder the employment of older workers, some aspects of
working conditions have been correlated with older workers’ employment rates
(Eurostat, 2007). These aspects have been analysed in this report; each of
these aspects is summarised in an index based on workers aged 55 years and
over, reflecting the working conditions of older people and the overall working
population, as well as reflecting synthetic indicators of working conditions for
each country (Table 17). Moreover, since the EWCS does not record people no
longer at work, many of whom may have left their employment partly due to
unfavourable working conditions, the same indicators have been computed for
workers aged 45– 54 years. As already outlined, workers in this age group are
an important target in terms of extending
people’s working lives: these workers are approaching retirement age and their
average working conditions reflect the conditions that workers who were
eligible to retire from the labour market faced at the time of their retirement
decision.
Many aspects of working
conditions correlate strongly with older workers’ employment rate: in particular,
correlations are higher among the 45–54 working age population, whose working conditions
can be interpreted as reflecting the average conditions facing older workers
who are deciding whether or not to retire. Positive correlations are found
especially in relation to work autonomy, the presence of HPWOs and access to
learning and training.
On the other hand, a clearly negative correlation emerges between employment
participation and exposure to physical risks at work. Not surprisingly, the
correlation between satisfaction and employment is positive.
Most of these relationships
have been discussed in the previous chapters, especially in relation to the
role of training, new technologies and physical risks. The role of HPWOs in
enhancing older workers’ employability is also highlighted in other research;
for instance, Bauer (2004) finds that a higher involvement in HPWOs is
associated with greater job satisfaction and increasing the employee’s
perception of overall utility from working.
Working conditions do not appear to have the same effect on older workers’ employment rates when discriminating according to gender (Table 18). For instance, the positive correlation between learning and training and employment is higher among women, while for men autonomy at work and involvement in HPWOs appears to have a stronger effect on employment rates.
