Working longer: an EU perspective

This report presents a view of policies in place to enable people to stay in work up to retirement age and beyond. The report looks at the current situation for older workers across the [European Union] EU including new figures from pan European datasets, proposes the case for supporting working longer, and reviews legislation, policy change and other support at both an EU-wide and Member State level on this issue. The review identifies a number of key trends and challenges which need to be overcome in order to ameliorate the discrimination and lack of support faced by many people who...  [+] Show more

This report presents a view of policies in place to enable people to stay in work up to retirement age and beyond. The report looks at the current situation for older workers across the [European Union] EU including new figures from pan European datasets, proposes the case for supporting working longer, and reviews legislation, policy change and other support at both an EU-wide and Member State level on this issue. The review identifies a number of key trends and challenges which need to be overcome in order to ameliorate the discrimination and lack of support faced by many people who wish to continue working. These trends include achieving gender equality, skilling up the older workforce, and tackling ageism and health issues faced by this group. It also notes larger economic trends to be considered, such as how older workers can be supported in recession, and matching the supply and demand of older workers within the labour force.

A number of policy areas are brought into focus, and the report identifies key actions to be taken with regards to: taking a life course approach to supporting workers; making better use of fiscal incentives to delay retirement; creating more, better, and appropriate jobs for an ageing workforce; addressing the inequalities faced by this group, both in terms of age and gender discrimination; and supporting a targeted research agenda to better understand the multifactorial issues in extending working lives. This report has been informed by a series of profiles of each of the EU-28 countries, examining the policies and structures that are supporting older workers. From these, key examples have been brought out to supplement the broader policy review.

Abstract from publisher’s website.