Nations that are raising retirement ages appear to work on the assumption that there is appropriate employment available for people who are expected to retire later. 'Gender, ageing and extended working life' challenges both this narrative, and the gender-neutral way the expectation for extending working lives is presented in most policy-making circles. The international contributors to this book - part of the Ageing in a Global Context series - apply life-course approaches to understanding evolving definitions of work and retirement. They consider the range of transitions from paid work to retirement that are potentially different for women and men in different family circumstances and occupational locations, and offer solutions governments should consider to enable them to evaluate existing policies. Based on evidence from Australia, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, this is essential reading for researchers and students, and for policymakers who formulate and implement employment and pensions policy at national and international levels.

This timely volume provides an up-to-date and comprehensive summary about what is known about aging and work and addresses the challenges and opportunities confronting older workers and organizations. The authors describe current and emerging topics related to work and aging adults such as working in teams, the increasing diversity of the labor force, work and caregiving, the implications of technology for an aging workforce, and health and wellness issues. The authorship is international; the authors are renowned for their respective work in the topical areas and represent a broad range of disciplines within academia, as well as offer perspectives from government and policy. Jobs, organizations, the labor market, and the workforce are experiencing dramatic change. Workers of all ages, including older workers, need to interact with the wide variety of ubiquitous technologies that are reshaping work processes, job content, work settings, communication strategies, and the delivery of training, and this book aims to update readers on the particular issues facing today’s aging adults in the workplace. The chapters’ broad and inclusive scope encompasses: Workplace aging and jobs in the 21st century The retirement income security outlook for older workers Population aging, age discrimination, and age discrimination protections Older workers and the contemporary labor market The role of aging, age diversity, and age heterogeneity within teams The intersection of family caregiving and work Current and Emerging Trends in Aging and Work is relevant to a broad audience of academic researchers, practitioners, and students in psychology, sociology, management, engineering (industrial and human factors), the health sciences, gerontology/geriatrics, and public health. It is also a useful resource for government and policy leaders, as well as workers and managers in the public and private sectors.

With the long-term trend toward earlier retirement slowing, and the majority of older workers remaining in employment up to and beyond statutory retirement age, it is increasingly important that we understand how to react to these changes. Bridge employment patterns and activities have changed greatly over the past decade, yet there is little information about the benefits of the various different forms this can take, both for employees and employers. This comparative international collection provides the first comprehensive summary of the literature on bridge employment, bringing together experiences from Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan. It identifies the opportunities, barriers and gaps in knowledge and practice, whilst offering recommendations on how organisations and individuals can cope with future challenges in aging and work. Written by international experts in the field, each chapter also makes substantive and contextualized suggestions for public policy and organizational decision-makers, providing them with a roadmap to implement and integrate bridge employment into policies and practices designed to prolong working life - a priority for workers, organizations and societies in the coming decades. This unique research handbook will be useful to a wide range of readers with an interest in the new concept of bridge employment and the extension of working life, and of interest to researchers and practitioners in organizational behavior, labor market analysis, human resource management, career development/counselling, occupational health, social economy and public policy administration

Oldness: a social construct at odds with reality that constrains how we live after middle age and stifles business thinking on how to best serve a group of consumers, workers, and innovators that is growing larger and wealthier with every passing day. Over the past two decades, Joseph F. Coughlin has been busting myths about aging with groundbreaking multidisciplinary research into what older people actually want -- not what conventional wisdom suggests they need. In The Longevity Economy, Coughlin provides the framing and insight business leaders need to serve the growing older market: a vast, diverse group of consumers representing every possible level of health and wealth, worth about $8 trillion in the United States alone and climbing. Coughlin provides deep insight into a population that consistently defies expectations: people who, through their continued personal and professional ambition, desire for experience, and quest for self-actualization, are building a striking, unheralded vision of longer life that very few in business fully understand. His focus on women -- they outnumber men, control household spending and finances, and are leading the charge toward tomorrow's creative new narrative of later life -- is especially illuminating. Coughlin pinpoints the gap between myth and reality and then shows businesses how to bridge it. As the demographics of global aging transform and accelerate, it is now critical to build a new understanding of the shifting physiological, cognitive, social, family, and psychological realities of the longevity economy.

Improvements in health care and quality of life in recent years have led to a marked aging of the world's population, especially in well-developed regions, in the near future, this problem will spread to developing countries. The growing need to promote the health and function of aging workers not only presents new challenges, but also provides exciting, new opportunities. The chapters in this book examine methods for diagnosing and evaluating work ability/employability in response to the changing capacity of employment. They set out the issues addressed by occupational health professionals to improve the work ability of elderly employees, and discuss measures to promote their employment. The book derives from a Conference on Aging and Work, held in Japan in September 2001. It will be of particular interest to professionals and students in the fields of occupational health, ergonomics, mechanical engineering, work physiology and industrial psychology. Book jacket.

Aging, Work, and Retirement presents the reasons older men and women are staying in the workforce as long as they are able to do so—information of immediate value to undergraduate and graduate students across the fields of sociology, gerontology, industrial/organizational psychology, and business management as well as to corporate leaders, human resources managers, professional organizations and policy makers. The text reflects a growing interest in and concern regarding aspects of aging, ageism, labor market challenges, workplace issues, plus gender and racial/ethnic similarities and differences in employment history and extended worklife opportunities, as they affect older workers in this country and abroad. Each chapter has cases and profiles and other strong pedagogical features allowing students to integrate the content with real world examples.