Introduction

Governments across the Global North are facing the reality of ageing populations and ageing workforces. These demographic changes have resulted in a debate that, to a great extent, has described the ageing population as a challenge to welfare provision and benefits. The reasoning is that the tax base is shrinking as the majority of older workers leave the labour market too early, often before state pension age. The focus of debate and policy development for extending working life has therefore mainly been based on economic perspectives. This is different from, for example, the comprehensive and long-running political debate on the need for increased labour market participation among women, which argues that women's participation in working life is a matter of democracy, justice and improving the way in which the competence and resources in society are utilised, rather than as just an economic necessity (see, eg, Hernes, 1987). It is also clear that the debate on older people's extended participation in working life is not based on a social movement, such as the one putting forward demands for job opportunities for women. Rather, it is an issue raised and motivated largely by groups other than older workers themselves.

While the rates of older worker labour market participation vary considerably across countries (as discussed in Chapter One), there is a common response among international, European and national authorities that extending working lives by encouraging people to work for longer and delay retirement is a necessity for the foreseeable future (OECD, 2006, 2011; Munnell and Sass, 2008; Magnus, 2009; Vickerstaff, 2010). Further, a new era is needed in which assumptions about the desirability and acceptability of early retirement, which had become embedded in the later part of the 20th century, are replaced by a new willingness to work longer. A common national policy response to this scenario has been to propose or to raise the ages at which people are eligible to take their state pension, hoping thereby to nudge people to delay retirement (for a full discussion of policy responses, see Chapter Three).

The policy debate about extending working lives has, to a great extent, characterised older people as the problem. It is their patterns of participation in working life and decisions on retirement that are the focus, and, as such, the debate has depended on the use of categorical stereotypes.

Introduction

Extended working life is but one component of the larger global political project of neoliberalisation, in this case centred on contextual issues associated with post-industrial economies and population ageing. In this book, we have refocused the issue by using a gendered lens, highlighting the failure of policy imagination associated with current approaches to extended working lives. One aim has been to point the way forward to a new theoretical and hence a new empirical and policy agenda for research in what everyone agrees will be continuing political, policy and private concerns for the next few generations. We have argued for a widening of the approach to studying older workers that more firmly situates them in their turbulent social, political and economic contexts, and have suggested the ways in which interlocking theoretical perspectives can provide a framework for understanding the complex reality in which older members of society approach employment in the later stages of their adult working lives.

All of the individual countries considered here share the dynamic of ageing populations in the context of global economic pressures that are diminishing national governments’ room for manoeuvre. Despite their very different political and economic backgrounds, all of the countries have, more or less, bought into the argument that ageing populations are a major problem unless more people delay retirement and work longer. Street (in Chapter One) uses a range of international data to underscore the problem of using such a simplified stance because it masks an incredibly complex set of multi-level interactions within country-specific labour markets. As Krekula and Vickerstaff argue (in Chapter Two), more people are expected to make the ‘right’ decision and continue working. Ní Léime and Loretto (in Chapter Three) provide a critical overview and analysis of the current policy landscape that bears on extending working lives.

This brief postscript fulfils several objectives: to briefly summarise the contributions of each of the individual country chapters; to highlight major cross-national similarities and differences; to emphasise topics where more research is needed to better understand the myriad implications of extended working lives; and to consider some policy directions that could improve prospects for extended working life by countering the increasing polarisation of later-life opportunities that current policy trajectories will create.

Introduction

When the Swedish debate on raising the retirement age began in the early 1990s, the country was in deep financial crisis and joint efforts were being made across the political parties to stabilise the economy. In the same spirit, a broad political collaboration sought to create a reformed pension system, where the question of retirement age was central. The problem was said to be increasing life expectancy and a pension system that was dependent on economic growth. The goal was therefore to lower the costs of the national pension system and to reduce the financial burden for workers (Government Bill, 1992/93). In 1994, the parliamentary collaboration created a new old-age pension system (Ds, 2009: 53) that included the implementation of a flexible retirement age between 61 and 67 years.

In the autumn of 2015, the government, in collaboration with the multiparty pensions group, which has existed since the 1990s, stated its intent to propose raising the minimum retirement age within the near future, in accordance with international recommendations (see European Commission, 2009; OECD, 2006). Increasing life expectancy and the financing of the pension system surfaced again as arguments for reform. However, policymakers also emphasised that many people do not have the physical ability to work until the age of 65, in light of sick-leave statistics for women in the public sector, and that it is therefore important to highlight the occupational health and safety issues before raising the retirement age (SVT Nyheter, 2015).

Two decades of unanimous arguments convey the impression that raising the retirement age is a unique rational solution to an objective and unambiguous problem. However, in line with Bacchi (1999, 2009), we argue that political proposals are flawed in that they are based on limited articulations of the problem to be solved and on a simultaneous exclusion of other possible perspectives. Policy documents on retirement age are, thus, not objective solutions to problems; rather, they are proactive actions that focus on some aspects and play down others (Bacchi, 2009).

From this starting point, the Swedish labour market from a gender and age perspective is considered, looking at the Swedish pension system and the perceived obstacles to an extended working life.