There are lots of reasons why people end their working lives early, and the relationships between those reasons are complex. We know, for instance, that if you’re a carer for someone close to you, if you’re unwell yourself or if you don’t have higher level qualifications then you’re more likely to stop working sooner. But how does the area in which you live affect your prospects of working for longer? What if you live in an area of high unemployment, for instance? A new report by George Holley-Moore and colleagues at the International Longevity Centre – UK highlights how people in such areas are less likely to extend their working lives – even when those other factors are taken into account.
All too often the debate about how best to help people to work into later life stops at physical health. But research from the renEWL project suggests there is much more to be considered. In a new report, Working for Everyone – Addressing Barriers and Inequalities in the Working Lives Agenda, we look at these complex relationships – and we find there’s a great deal more policymakers could be doing to help.
Interlinking factors such as physical and mental health, working conditions, family life and lifestyle are all important. And it’s vital that regions should use their devolved powers to ensure that people in all parts of the population have the opportunity to extend their working lives.
The importance of geography
But how does where you live affect the length of your working life? We know older workers living in areas of high unemployment tend to leave work earlier: A study by Emily Murray and others looked at a one per cent sample of the population, aged between 40 and 69 and working in 2001, and at the same sample again 10 years later. Using local area statistics on unemployment, it mapped whether they left work, and their reasons for leaving, against the level of joblessness in their area.
It found that people who rated their health as poor in 2001 were almost six times more likely not to be in work 10 years later.
Thinking about this, it’s perhaps unsurprising that older workers in areas of high unemployment were less likely to be in work 10 years on – after all, if you live in an area with high unemployment you’re more likely to suffer from a long-term health issue. And that’s bound to affect your ability to work. Furthermore, if you have poor health earlier in life you are more likely to be sick or disabled later in life.
But was there a geographical factor even after these health inequalities were taken into account? Murray and colleagues found that even those in good health were more likely to be out of work a decade on if they lived in an area of high unemployment – that is to say, this economic factor operates separately from all those other things that can affect the length of a person’s working life. People in poor health were more likely to be out of work regardless of where they lived.
Evidence-based planning
It’s clear that there is a need for strong regional and national planning on these inter-related areas of work, health and geography. Creating policies tailored to the unique pressures faced by the local population will be necessary to address the scale of the problem:
National Government should focus infrastructure spending on areas of higher unemployment with a view to increasing job opportunities and making employment more accessible for older workers.
Regions need to use devolved power to tailor their own integrated strategies to enable fuller working lives.
Local authorities should be given power and funding to coordinate local partnerships that tackle employment challenges. These should include councils, businesses, health and social care providers and charities: supporting fuller working lives in at-risk areas would require a joined-up approach that targets the various at-risk groups.
Fundamentally, policy must move away from focusing exclusively on physical health conditions. We need a holistic approach which incorporates physical and psychological health, growing care needs and socio-economic disparity if we are to extend working life for everyone.