The Government’s Business Champion for Older Workers, Andy Briggs, has called for one million more older people to be in work by 2022. But to enjoy the benefits of working longer, we need to remain in good health. Professor Keith Palmer from the University of Southampton and colleagues investigated whether signs of frailty in mid-life…
Tag: Employment
Organisational change: impact on early retirement
Motivating older employees to stay working longer is seen as a key way of tackling the current pensions crisis facing many countries. Something of a fly in the ointment for those looking to address the problem is the option to take voluntary early retirement, especially where among those who are in good health and best…
Frailty: what is the connection with our working lives?
People are living longer, and the number of over-65s is expected to reach around one in four of the UK population by 2050. But is retirement a golden age, or will we be dogged by poor health? Wentian Lu from University College London and colleagues investigated how our working pattern throughout our lives affects our…
Healthy pensioners: Is working in our 60s good for us?
Pension ages in the UK are rising from the traditional 65 for men and 60 for women, as people live longer. But is working in later life good for us? The Government’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Dame Sally Davies says people aged 50-70 are more likely to stay healthy if they stay in work, but…
Work and family conflict: who is at risk?
Juggling the demands of work and family can create conflict and this can play out differently for men and women. But what other factors are at play? Do things like the sort of job we do and the levels of control we feel we have at work and at home matter too? It’s a subject…
Want to be fit at forty? Don’t have a baby early!
Having a family early may not be good for your health later on. That was the conclusion of a team of researchers at the ESRC International centre for Lifecourse Studies when they looked at the interplay between the work and family lives of men and women, whose lives have been tracked over time in the…
Reform and retirement: pension lessons from Finland
Pension reform is taking place in countries around the world. Governments, businesses and individuals have gradually come to terms with the fact that one of the consequences of us all living longer is that existing pension arrangements are unsustainable. As a result, millions of workers are being encouraged, nudged or, in some cases, forced to…
Who works post State Pension Age?
Across Europe and indeed other parts of the world, we’re being told we need to work longer than in the past. The reason? We’re all living longer and pension systems everywhere are collapsing under the strain. But with age can come poorer health and reduced physical capabilities and what if doing our job is physically…
Empower employees! They will retire later
Working longer has become a policy priority in recent years, but how can people be actively encouraged to retire later? What needs to change in the workplace in order to persuade people to extend their working life? UCL’s Ewan Carr, as part of the renEWL project, has been looking at survey information from the English…
Out of work again? The psychological impacts of repeated unemployment
Being unemployed is bad for our mental well-being, but if we lose our job more than once does the psychological blow lessen in some way? Researchers Cara Booker from the University of Essex and Amanda Sacker at the International Centre for Lifecourse Studies at UCL used the long-running British Household Panel Survey to examine the…