This open access book addresses the current debate on extended working life policy by considering the influence of gender and health on the experiences of older workers. Bringing together an ...international team of scholars, it tackles issues as gender, health status and job/ occupational characteristics that structure the capacity and outcomes associated with working longer. The volume starts with an overview of the empirical and policy literature; continues with a discussion of the relevant theoretical perspectives; includes a section on available data and indicators; followed by 25 very concise and unique country reports that highlight the main extended working life (EWL) research findings and policy trajectories at the national level. It identifies future directions for research and addresses issues associated with effective policy-making. This volume fills an important gap in the knowledge of the consequences of EWL and it will be an invaluable source for both researchers and policy makers.
Objectives This study aims to provide insight into educational differences in duration of working life by working life expectancy (WLE) and working years lost (WYL) through disability benefits and ...other non-employment states in the Netherlands. Methods Monthly information on employment status of the Dutch population (N=4 999 947) between 16 and 66 years from 2001‒2015 was used to estimate working life courses and loss of working years for specific non-employment states. Across educational groups, bi-directional transitions between paid employment and non-employment states were calculated. Using a multistate model, the WLE and WYL at age 16, 30, 50 and up to 66 years as statutory retirement age were estimated for each educational group, stratified by gender. Results Low-educated men and women had a 7.3 (men) and 9.9 (women) years lower WLE at age 30 than high-educated men and women. Among low-educated men, 3.4 working years were lost due to disability benefit compared to 0.8 among high-educated men. Low-educated women lost 3.0 working years due to disability benefit compared to 1.4 among high-educated women. Conclusions There are large educational inequalities over the course of working life. Among low-educated workers, more working years are lost due to unemployment, no income, and especially disability benefits. The latter reflects large educational inequalities in health and working conditions. The metrics of WLE and WYL provide useful insights into the life-course perspective on working careers.
In the last decade, research on the nature, impact and prospect of meaningful work has flourished. Despite an upsurge in scholarly and practitioner interest, the research field is characterized by a ...lack of consensus over how meaningful work should be defined and whether its ingredients are exclusively subjective perceptions or solely triggered by objective job characteristics. The disconnection between objective and subjective dimensions of meaningful work results in a hampered understanding of how it emerges in relation to the interplay of workplace, managerial, societal and individual relations. The article addresses this gap and introduces a novel sociological meaningful work framework that features the objective and subjective dimensions of autonomy, dignity and recognition as its key pillars. In this way, a framework is offered that analyses how meaningful work is experienced at the agent level, but shaped by wider dynamics at the structural level.
Good Jobs, Bad Jobs provides an insightful analysis of how and why precarious employment is gaining ground in the labor market and the role these developments have played in the decline of the middle ...class. Kalleberg shows that by the 1970s, government deregulation, global competition, and the rise of the service sector gained traction, while institutional protections for workers—such as unions and minimum-wage legislation—weakened. Together, these forces marked the end of postwar security for American workers. The composition of the labor force also changed significantly; the number of dual-earner families increased, as did the share of the workforce comprised of women, non-white, and immigrant workers. Of these groups, blacks, Latinos, and immigrants remain concentrated in the most precarious and low-quality jobs, with educational attainment being the leading indicator of who will earn the highest wages and experience the most job security and highest levels of autonomy and control over their jobs and schedules. Kalleberg demonstrates, however, that building a better safety net—increasing government responsibility for worker health care and retirement, as well as strengthening unions—can go a long way toward redressing the effects of today’s volatile labor market. There is every reason to expect that the growth of precarious jobs—which already make up a significant share of the American job market—will continue. Good Jobs, Bad Jobs deftly shows that the decline in U.S. job quality is not the result of fluctuations in the business cycle, but rather the result of economic restructuring and the disappearance of institutional protections for workers. Only government, employers and labor working together on long-term strategies—including an expanded safety net, strengthened legal protections, and better training opportunities—can help reverse this trend.
Objective The aim of this study was to evaluate factors within nine identified areas that influence why some older workers want to (or believe they can) work until age 65 years or beyond, whereas ...others leave the workforce earlier. Methods The questionnaire-based, cross-sectional study included 1792 respondents aged 55–64 years, employed in the healthcare sector in Sweden. Using logistic regression, we investigated the associations between statements within nine areas and two outcome measures: (i) whether the individual wanted to work until age 65 years or beyond and (ii) whether the individual believed they can work until age 65 years or beyond. Results Of the 1792 respondents, 54% stated that they "can" and 38% that they "want to" work until age 65 years or beyond. Three areas were significantly associated with both these outcomes: worker health, economic incentives, and retirement decisions by life partners or close friends. Mental and physical working environment, work pace and skills/competence were associated with the "can" outcome, whereas work as an important part of life, working time, and management attitude to older workers were associated with the "want to" outcome. Conclusion Although there were differences regarding the associations between six of the areas and the two outcomes (ie, "can" and "want to" go on working until age 65 years or beyond), three of the areas were important to both outcomes. Among those, it was interesting that life partner or close social environment gave higher odds ratios than for example health, physical work environment, or work satisfaction.
Private Government Anderson, Elizabeth
2017, 2017., 20170515, 2017-05-23, Letnik:
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eBook
Why our workplaces are authoritarian private governments-and why we can't see it
One in four American workers says their workplace is a "dictatorship." Yet that number probably would be even higher ...if we recognized most employers for what they are-private governments with sweeping authoritarian power over our lives, on duty and off. We normally think of government as something only the state does, yet many of us are governed far more-and far more obtrusively-by the private government of the workplace. In this provocative and compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson argues that the failure to see this stems from long-standing confusions. These confusions explain why, despite all evidence to the contrary, we still talk as if free markets make workers free-and why so many employers advocate less government even while they act as dictators in their businesses.
In many workplaces, employers minutely regulate workers' speech, clothing, and manners, leaving them with little privacy and few other rights. And employers often extend their authority to workers' off-duty lives. Workers can be fired for their political speech, recreational activities, diet, and almost anything else employers care to govern. Yet we continue to talk as if early advocates of market society-from John Locke and Adam Smith to Thomas Paine and Abraham Lincoln-were right when they argued that it would free workers from oppressive authorities. That dream was shattered by the Industrial Revolution, but the myth endures.
Private Governmentoffers a better way to talk about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom.
Based on the prestigious Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values,Private Governmentis edited and introduced by Stephen Macedo and includes commentary by cultural critic David Bromwich, economist Tyler Cowen, historian Ann Hughes, and philosopher Niko Kolodny.
Research on older workers and retirement has yet to adjust fully to an environment influenced by a combination of demographic change, technological developments and economic recession. A key ...dimension to the changing relationship between ageing and work is the tension between policies to extend working life and the increasingly fragmented nature of late working life, with the emergence of varied transitions, including: bridge employment, second/third careers, part-time working, early retirement and other variations. These developments indicate both the challenge of conceptualising new forms of work-ending, and – in policy terms – the extent to which these can successfully accommodate longer working lives. The paper provides a critical perspective to the policy of extending working life and the narrative which underpins this approach. The paper argues that retirement has become a ‘contested’ institution in the 21st century, fragmented across different pathways and transitions affecting people in their fifties and sixties. The paper argues the case for improving work quality and security as a precondition for supporting policies for encouraging working in later life. An essential requirement for this will include linking debates on extending working life with technological developments and changes affecting the workplace, creating differentiated paths to retirement and labour force exit, enhancing the provision of training and continuing education, and re-thinking the idea of the ‘older worker’.
Evaluative judgement is the capability to make decisions about the quality of work of oneself and others. In this paper, we propose that developing students' evaluative judgement should be a goal of ...higher education, to enable students to improve their work and to meet their future learning needs: a necessary capability of graduates. We explore evaluative judgement within a discourse of pedagogy rather than primarily within an assessment discourse, as a way of encompassing and integrating a range of pedagogical practices. We trace the origins and development of the term 'evaluative judgement' to form a concise definition then recommend refinements to existing higher education practices of self-assessment, peer assessment, feedback, rubrics, and use of exemplars to contribute to the development of evaluative judgement. Considering pedagogical practices in light of evaluative judgement may lead to fruitful methods of engendering the skills learners require both within and beyond higher education settings. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).
The thesis of this paper is that health and safety challenges of working people can only be fully understood by examining them as wholes with interacting parts. This paper unravels this indispensable ...whole by introducing the working life exposome and elucidating how associated epistemologies and methodologies can enhance empirical research.
Network and population health scientists have initiated an ongoing discourse on the state of empirical work-health-safety-well-being research.
Empirical research has not fully captured the totality and complexity of multiple and interacting work and nonwork factors defining the health of working people over their life course. We challenge the prevailing paradigm by proposing to expand it from narrow work-related exposures and associated monocausal frameworks to the holistic study of work and population health grounded in complexity and exposome sciences. Health challenges of working people are determined by, embedded in, and/or operate as complex systems comprised of multilayered and interdependent components. One can identify many potentially causal factors as sufficient and component causes where removal of one or more of these can impact disease progression. We, therefore, cannot effectively study them by an a priori determination of a set of components and/or properties to be examined separately and then recombine partial approaches, attempting to form a picture of the whole. Instead, we must examine these challenges as wholes from the start, with an emphasis on interactions among their multifactorial components and their emergent properties. Despite various challenges, working-life-exposome-grounded frameworks and associated innovations have the potential to accomplish that.
This emerging paradigm shift can move empirical work-health-safety-well-being research to cutting-edge science and enable more impactful policies and actions.
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