Introduction

Populations everywhere are ageing, but especially so in affluent countries. People are living longer and reaching older ages healthier and less frail than at any other time in human history. The combination of unprecedented longevity and the growing size of aged populations makes it obvious that state pension systems have become expensive components of modern welfare states. In most countries, politicians and policymakers are pursuing neoliberal policies to limit state interventions into social welfare in general, and to minimise, where possible, the growth of pension costs in particular. These complex social, economic and political circumstances are all part of the empirical landscape of extended working lives.

The sheer magnitude of demographic change seems, unavoidably, to pose some challenges for traditional public defined contribution pension systems, which are typically the costliest social policy tranche in most affluent countries. Although productivity increases since the mid-20th century created the capacity for nations to first expand, and then sustain, their welfare states, the changing ratio between young and older citizens undeniably puts the issue of the responsiveness of pension systems into public discourse. Alongside the policy influences associated with population ageing, current political preferences for welfare state restructuring (Pierson, 2001; Gilbert, 2002), the re-individualisation of risk (O’Rand, 2011) and neoliberal ideologies (Hacker, 2006) work together to create a seemingly irrefutable logic: people must extend their working lives and delay retirement. From a public policy perspective, the argument is often that individuals must wait longer to retire because their fellow citizens cannot contribute enough revenue to keep public pension promises. From a neoliberal ideological perspective, the state should stop nannying individuals by offering traditional pensions. Instead, individuals should be able to choose pension arrangements that they prefer and be more responsible for financing their own retirements, a process of re-individualising risk (see O’Rand, 2011). From a human capital perspective, and particularly in the context of proportionately smaller working-aged populations, another claim is that older workers have scarce human capital that employers need, and that failing to use older workers would be both irrational and inefficient (Weller, 2007). Furthermore, if the popular culture pundits have it right that ‘70 is the new 50’ (Byham, 2007), individuals themselves may not only want to extend their working lives, but also benefit from it beyond earning wages (see, eg, the vast and growing literature on ‘successful’ ageing and its productive/active variants).

Introduction

Perhaps, as one popular Internet meme suggests, 70 is (becoming) the new 60, as Americans live ever longer, healthier lives (Cutler et al, 2013). Since the mid-1990s, older workers’ labour force participation rates have crept up, paralleling a phased increase in the Social Security normal retirement age to 67 by 2027. Some older Americans want to work longer – finding careers at later ages intrinsically and financially rewarding (AARP, 2014). That is the extending working lives perspective emphasised by academic and policy formulations of ‘productive’ (Butler, 1985), ‘active’ (WHO, 2002) and ‘successful’ (Rowe and Kahn, 1997) ageing, embracing the notion that some individuals value work in its own right, plus continued wages and benefits. Gerontological ideals about active and successful ageing have contributed to neoliberal and entrepreneurial advocacy in both the health and retirement fields (Hamblin, 2010), nourishing positive stances towards work in later life. However, the unquestioned assumption – that 70 should be the new 60 where employment is concerned – implies that extended working life is the right policy prescription for all or most older Americans. Yet, for many, employment is not a choice, but rather the only way to maintain health insurance, pay down debt, meet expenses and accumulate retirement savings (Copeland, 2014), with few alternatives to continued low-paid, insecure or physically demanding employment. Increasingly, workers of all ages are engaged in unappreciated/underappreciated, precarious and demoralising jobs (Kalleberg, 2009), but especially older workers post-recession (Hess et al, 2011).

This chapter considers selected policies that shape work (and work exit) at older ages and some implications of extended working life for Americans. Later-life employment patterns and the US retirement income structure are considered since both pensions and labour markets influence decisions about continuing work or whether and when to retire. Selected policies, from work–family initiatives to anti-age discrimination legislation that could support or encourage work to later ages, are explored. Foreseeable challenges linked to current policy prescriptions that ignore the complexities of extended working life are identified. Policy and research interventions are highlighted that could create a better foundation for dignified and satisfying employment for older workers – and retirement income adequacy when paid work ends – should extending working life become widely feasible and socially necessary in the future.

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.