205 TWELVE The outcomes of early retirement in Nordic countries Laura Saurama In western industrialised countries labour markets have traditionally been the arena of life through which individuals are integrated into the society. The labour markets do not provide only economic security for individuals, but also provide social contact. Fundamental changes in the labour market, globalisation and the development of the information society have lead to an increasing exclusion of individuals from the labour market. Unemployment and early retirement have become more
247© The Policy Press • 2007 • ISSN 0962 7898 ar tic le 3 Benefits • vol 15 • no 3 • 2007 • 247-55 Narrowing pathways to early retirement in the Netherlands Wim van Oorschot The early retirement of older workers, and their low labour participation, was not seen as a major problem by the Dutch government during the years of recession in the 1980s and early 1990s. However, with the upswing of the economy and the rapid ageing of the population, the government’s perspective changed drastically and related policy measures were taken. After a general introduction
There have been major shifts in the framework of social policy and welfare across Europe. Adopting a multi-level, comparative and interdisciplinary approach, this book develops a critical analysis of policy change and welfare reform in Europe.
The book applies a dynamic and change oriented perspective to shed light on policy changes that are often poorly understood in the welfare literature, and contributes to a further development of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks for understanding social change.
Using citizenship as a focus, several dimensions of change are analysed simultaneously: changes in the discipline of social policy itself; the changing character of social problems; changes in social policy and citizenship; and the emergence of new forms of social integration. The book also speculates on how different dimensions of change are interlinked.
More people are extending their working lives through necessity or choice in the context of increasingly precarious labour markets and neoliberalism. This book goes beyond the aggregated statistics to explore the lived experiences of older people attempting to make job transitions.
Drawing on the voices of older workers in a diverse range of European countries, leading scholars explore job redeployment and job mobility, temporary employment, unemployment, employment beyond pension age and transitions into retirement.
This book makes a major contribution and will be essential reading within a range of disciplines, including social gerontology, management, sociology and social policy.
Nations that are raising retirement ages appear to work on the assumption that there is appropriate employment available for people who are expected to retire later. ‘Gender, ageing and extended working life’ challenges both this narrative, and the gender-neutral way the expectation for extending working lives is presented in most policy-making circles.
The international contributors to this book - part of the Ageing in a Global Context series - apply life-course approaches to understanding evolving definitions of work and retirement. They consider the range of transitions from paid work to retirement that are potentially different for women and men in different family circumstances and occupational locations, and offer solutions governments should consider to enable them to evaluate existing policies.
Based on evidence from Australia, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, this is essential reading for researchers and students, and for policymakers who formulate and implement employment and pensions policy at national and international levels.
Across the world governments in mature industrial and post-industrial economies are concerned about the ageing population. Dealing directly and exclusively with the issue of older workers, this book brings together up-to-the-minute research findings by many of the leading researchers and writers in the field.
The duration and quality of working lives and the timing and circustances of retirement are of growing concern, especially in those cases where employers’ demands and imperatives clash with employees’ wishes. The contributions in this volume focus upon various measures taken by the state and employers to foster the employment of older workers in Britain, mainland Europe, the US and Japan. The authors address key issues that will influence public policy, exploring what workers over 50 want, the impact of the ageing workforce on employer policies and the implications for governments in promoting and supporting extended working lives.
The book is aimed at academics, students, policy makers and other professionals (such as training managers, HR professionals and trade unionists) interested in contemporary issues within social policy, the sociology of ageing, and human resource and diversity management. It wil also be of interest to older workers themselves.
It is often argued that European welfare states, with regulated labour markets, relatively generous social protection and relatively high wage equality, have become counter-productive in a globalised and knowledge-intensive economy. Using in-depth, comparative and interdisciplinary analysis of employment, welfare and citizenship in a number of European countries, this book challenges this view.
It provides:
an overview of employment and unemployment in Europe at the beginning of the 21st century;
a comprehensive critique of the idea of globalisation as a challenge to European welfare states;
detailed country chapters with new and previously inaccessible information about employment and unemployment policies written by national experts.
Europe’s new state of welfare is essential reading for students and teachers of social policy, welfare studies, politics and economics.
Changing labour markets, welfare policies and citizenship readdresses the question of how full citizenship may be preserved and developed in the face of enduring labour market pressures. It:
clarifies the relationship between changing labour markets, welfare policies and citizenship;
discusses possible ways in which the spill-over effect from labour market marginality to loss of citizenship can be prevented;
specifies this problem in relation to the young, older people, men and women and immigrants;
offers theoretical and conceptual definitions of citizenship as a new, alternative approach to empirical analyses of labour market marginalisation and its consequences; highlights the lessons to be learned from differing approaches in European countries.
Retirement is being ‘reconstructed’, with the UK following the US path of abolishing mandatory retirement and increasing state pension ages. This timely book assesses prospects for work and retirement at age 65-plus in the UK and US.
Part 1 explores the shifting ‘policy logics’ in both countries that increase both the need and opportunities to work past age 65. Part 2 presents an original comparative statistical analysis on the wide range of factors influencing employment at this age. Part 3 proposes a series of policies across the life-course that would promote security and autonomy for older people.
Pathways to employment after 65 are complex and pressures to work at this age are likely to result in very unequal outcomes. This book is essential reading for researchers, students and practitioners interested in the late careers and the future of retirement.
Developing the new framework of ‘life-mix’, which considers the mixed patterns of caring and working in different periods of life, this book systematically explores the interplay of productivism, women, care and work in East Asia and Europe.
The book ranges across four key aspects of welfare – childcare, parental leave, employment support and pensions – to illustrate how policies affect women in various periods of their lives. Policy case studies from France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, South Korea, Sweden and the UK, show how welfare could support people’s caring and working lives. This book forms a prescient examination of how productivist thinking underpins regimes and impacts women’s welfare, care and work in both the East and West.
