Has the participation of older employees in the workforce increased? Study of the total Swedish population regarding exit from working life

Abstract

Aims: This study investigated: (i) the workforce participation in Sweden among older employees before and after changes in eligibility for sickness absence and unemployment compensation by a social insurance reform; and (ii) absence and early exit mechanisms from the workforce for different professions by looking at sickness benefits, disability pension and unemployment, early statutory pension, employment pension and unregistered economic supply. Methods: A register-based follow-up study of the total Swedish workforce population of 55–64-year-olds, measured in 2004 and 2011. Results: The total proportion of individuals aged 55–64 in the workforce increased between 2004 and 2011, but the increase was mostly in professions with lower educational requirements, a lower salary and dominated by women. Both in 2004 and in 2011, men in professions with higher educational requirements more often exit working life with an early statutory pension and employment pension. In contrast, professions with lower educational requirements more often absence working life with sickness benefits, disability pension and unemployment compensation than other professions in both 2004 and 2011. Conclusions: The change in regulations seems to have contributed to an overall shrinking proportion of individuals within the sickness benefit and disability pension schemes. At the same time the proportion of individuals taking an early pension has increased. The results indicated a tendency of passing on the costs of labour-market exit within different economic compensation arrangements, as well as to the individuals themselves; for example, less sickness benefit, disability pension, but more statutory pension and employment pension earlier.

Risk of being granted disability pension among incident cancer patients before and after a structural pension reform: A Danish population-based, matched cohort study

“…The introduction of municipal rehabilitation teams has put emphasis on vocational rehabilitation in general; social workers may be more aware of offering other public benefits than DP targeted to sustain work ability and employability. This is in line with experiences gained from the introduction of social reforms in other countries, where spill-over effects were observed such as increased unemployment rates when retirement age was postponed (14) and an increase of statutory pensions were seen when the entitlement to DP and sickness benefits was reduced (15). It may be an indication of a fulfillment of the reform's overall purpose, namely to increase attachment to the labor market, and thus supporting the assumptions put forward in Labriola's conceptual framework (11).…”

Struggles of Older Workers at the Labour Market

“…Other authors present the findings of a study on age discrimination against older workers (Cheung et al, 2010) and furthermore that the question of age discrimination is becoming increasingly important (Wale, 2011).Other studies also point the occurrence of age discrimination in organizations. (Cheung et al, 2016;Nilsson, 2016;Moulaert and Biggs, 2013).…”

“…Within the conceptualization of the process of ageing itself and determining the factors improving the vitality of ageing population, K. Nilsson conducted a discursive analysis of 128 articles focusing on this topic (Nilsson et al, 2016). The resulting findings suggest that the main factor influencing the vitality of older people is biological ageing; i.e.…”

Working environment and work retention

“…Based on several years of research (Nilsson, 2005a(Nilsson, ,b, 2006(Nilsson, , 2012(Nilsson, , 2015a(Nilsson, ,b, 2016aNilsson & Pinzke, 2010;Nilsson et al, 2010Nilsson et al, , 2012Nilsson et al, , 2016a Nilsson has developed a comprehensive theoretical framework for analysing and understanding the high complexity of work life participation of older workers. The theoretical framework presented in figure 1 highlights this complexity.…”