Uncertain Futures: Organisational Influences on the Transition from Work to Retirement

Phillipson, Chris; Shepherd, Sue; Robinson, Mark; Vickerstaff, Sarah

doi:10.1017/s1474746418000180

Cited by 32 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Individual decisions about whether to carry on working or retire are as we know complex and constrained. The interaction of health, wealth, marital status, employer action and government policy combine to structure what is possible and what is desirable (Vickerstaff, 2006;Loretto and Vickerstaff, 2012;Hasselhorn and Apt, 2015;Lain, 2016;Phillipson et al, 2019). The study reported here seeks to include in the list of dynamic variables in retirement decision making, a full and rounded sense of the impact of ageism.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Impact of Age Stereotypes and Age Norms on Employees’ Retirement Choices: A Neglected Aspect of Research on Extended Working Lives

Vickerstaff

Horst

2021

Front. Sociol.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article examines how older workers employ internalized age norms and perceptions when thinking about extending their working lives or retirement timing. It draws on semi-structured interviews with employees (n = 104) and line managers, human resource managers and occupational health specialists (n = 52) from four organisations in the United Kingdom. Previous research has demonstrated discrimination against older workers but this is a limiting view of the impact that ageism may have in the work setting. Individuals are likely to internalize age norms as older people have lived in social contexts in which negative images of what it means to be “old” are prevalent. These age perceptions are frequently normalized (taken for granted) in organisations and condition how people are managed and crucially how they manage themselves. How older workers and managers think and talk about age is another dynamic feature of decision making about retirement with implications for extending working lives. Amongst our respondents it was widely assumed that older age would come with worse health—what is more generally called the decline narrative - which served both as a motivation for individuals to leave employment to maximize enjoyment of their remaining years in good health as well as a motivation for some other individuals to stay employed in order to prevent health problems that might occur from an inactive retirement. Age norms also told some employees they were now “too old” for their job, to change job, for training and/or promotion and that they should leave that “to the younger ones”—what we call a sense of intergenerational disentitlement. The implications of these processes for the extending working lives agenda are discussed.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The original data design and protocols received full ethical approval. For more information on this larger project, please see ILC-UK (2017), Phillipson et al (2019), and Wainwright et al (2019). The reanalysis of interviews which forms the basis of this paper was funded by the ESRC (Ref.…”

Section: Data Availability Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Age Stereotypes and Age Norms on Employees’ Retirement Choices: A Neglected Aspect of Research on Extended Working Lives

Vickerstaff

Horst

2021

Front. Sociol.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In many of the countries covered in this volume we have seen a retrenchment in welfare policy, making it more difficult to take disability pension routes out of the labour market. This along with other policy changes, such as the ending of mandatory retirement ages and rising ages for state pension entitlement have the effect of further putting the onus on employers to deliver extended working lives, for example by offering new later career options; supporting flexible or partial retirement and considering and facilitating job redesign (Phillipson et al 2018).…”

Section: Who Wants To Employ Older Workers?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The ‘Older Worker’ and the ‘Ideal Worker’: A Critical Examination of Concepts and Categorisations in the Rhetoric of Extending Working Lives

Krekula

Vickerstaff

2020

Extended Working Life Policies

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Policies supporting longer working lives have to a great extent described older people as the problem. In this chapter we challenge this description by looking critically at some of the assumptions underlying the extending working life agenda. The chapter begins with a discussion about the homogeneous representations of increased life expectancy, where we show that the neglect of growing differences in longevity takes privileged aging as the starting point. Next we discuss the use of the concept of gender equality to illustrate how male life courses are taken as the norm. The chapter then considers how increased individualization and the conditions that work organizations provide frames older people as all the same leading to widening inequalities amongst those in retirement. All taken together, extended working life leads to be an individualization of the risks of working life. Based on an analysis of the debates at the country level we further argue that the extended working life agenda is a top-down process and a globally spread implementation of an economically based political project.

show abstract

“…Mange legger planer, men opplever at planene kullkastes på grunn av nedbemanning i bedriften, egen sykdom eller uforutsette begivenheter i familien (Furunes mfl. 2015;Hilsen & Midtsundstad 2014;Phillipson, Shepherd, Robinson & Vickerstaff 2019;Solem mfl. 2016;Vickerstaff 2006aVickerstaff 2006b.…”

Section: Pensjonssystemet I Norgeunclassified

Arbeidslinja – nå også for 70-åringer? Eldre arbeidstakeres tanker om lønnsarbeid, pensjon og det gode liv

Grødem¹

2020

SPA

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Uncertain Futures: Organisational Influences on the Transition from Work to Retirement

Cited by 32 publications

References 18 publications

The Impact of Age Stereotypes and Age Norms on Employees’ Retirement Choices: A Neglected Aspect of Research on Extended Working Lives

The Impact of Age Stereotypes and Age Norms on Employees’ Retirement Choices: A Neglected Aspect of Research on Extended Working Lives

The ‘Older Worker’ and the ‘Ideal Worker’: A Critical Examination of Concepts and Categorisations in the Rhetoric of Extending Working Lives

Arbeidslinja – nå også for 70-åringer? Eldre arbeidstakeres tanker om lønnsarbeid, pensjon og det gode liv

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About