School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemOlder workers and employment: managing age relations(CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2005-05)This article reports the findings of research into the functioning of companies' and organisations' internal labour markets. Four case studies of Australian and United Kingdom public and private sector organisations have been undertaken with two principal aims: to elucidate the challenges and barriers to the employment of older workers, and to demonstrate the benefits to business and to older workers of age-aware human resource management policies. In each of the case-study organisations, age-related assumptions affected the management of knowledge and skills and the ways in which older and younger workers were employed. Managing age relations in organisations requires an understanding of the ways in which workers of different ages are perceived and how these associate with sub-optimal deployment. The article concludes by suggesting that policies directed at older workers alone will ignore the age and age-group dynamics that pervade workplaces. To promote the better deployment of younger and older individuals in rapidly transforming organisations, there is a need for policy makers, employers and employees to be attentive to the age-group relationships that currently inform workplace practices. Organisations cannot ignore these age dynamics, but should adopt ‘age aware’ rather than ‘age free’ practices. The recommended human-resources approach would attend to individuals' capabilities and not stereotype them by age.
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ItemAge and Work: International Perspectives(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2004-04)The need to extend working life is being increasingly emphasised in policy debates in the developed economies. Recent years have seen the emergence of new policies on work on retirement aimed at closing off ‘early exit’ pathways and promoting the employment of older workers. This article summarises recent developments in selected countries, concluding that the effectiveness of policy making to date is difficult to gauge, that as yet, it lacks the necessary sophistication and that, as a consequence, it may not provide appropriate pathways for older workers or employers.
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ItemIntroduction: Themed section on Age, Employment and Policy(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2004-04)Older workers have moved up the policy agenda within the industrialised nations. In the 1980s and first half of the 1990s, policy-making in much of the European Union emphasised the virtues of early retirement, partly as a response to high levels of unemployment. Since the late 1990s, there has been an increasing emphasis on overcoming age barriers in the labour market and on extending working life. This has been driven by concerns over ageing and shrinking labour forces, the sustainability of public pension systems, evidence of age discrimination in the labour market and the potential influence of the ‘grey’ voter. By contrast in the USA, the pronounced trend towards ‘early exit’ which has characterised Europe never existed. This is even more the case in Japan.
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ItemAgeing and Learning in the European Union(Committee for Economic Development of Australia, 2005)
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ItemOlder workers and the labour market: Lessons from abroad(American Society on Aging, 2007)This article is based largely on research completed recently for the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, which considered recent trends in public policy toward older workers in eleven Member States of the European Union and developments in workplace policy in approximately 120 organizations, primarily larger and operating in the private sector. The article summarizes and evaluates the European public policy response to economic challenges resulting from population aging, before going on to discuss the response of businesses, particularly as they wrestle with increasing competition. The article concludes by asking questions about the future place of older workers in the labor markets of the industrialized nations, and how they will experience efforts to make them work for longer.
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ItemEmployees, employers and the institutions of work: The global competition for terrain in the ageing workforce agenda(Emerald, 2008-03-03)Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess risks and prospects for older workers and to provide a number of recommendations designed to marshal the interests of employees, business and government. Design/methodology/approach The paper examines the terrain of competing interests and dynamic complexities of workforce ageing, by elaborating on the topic of economic globalisation, the policy approaches adopted by government, the actions taken by industry and the working and life preferences of older workers. Findings In the absence of a deep understanding of the current relationship between demographic ageing, the labour market and economic globalisation, the policy aspirations of government face the prospect of limited success. The currently popular premise, that ageing populations go hand‐in‐hand with ageing workforces, appears to be contradicted by much of the available evidence, which points to rather more complex scenarios, in which outcomes are uncertain, but clearly where late career workers may not necessarily fare well. Originality/value The paper brings analysis to the area of ageing populations and the labour market in the context of globalization – a complex and important topic that is usually dealt with far too simply.
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ItemOlder workers, government and business: Implications for ageing populations of a globalising economy(John Wiley & Sons, 2008-03)Though there is a consensus surrounding the importance of people working at older ages – and in a more flexible way – trends in employment and trade patterns mean that existing policies are not as effective as they need to be.