Aging and Volunteer Work: Problems and Possibilities in England
Rebecca
Steel and Jason L. Powell,
University
of Central Lancashire, UK
Introduction
This study intends to provide a concise synopsis of emerging issues
centred on an aging population and its impact on employability within the
context of the UK’s labour market. The hypothesis presented provides insight
into the relationship between age and employability in the current paradigm of
a fluctuating economic climate. Drawing upon the experiences of older
volunteers engaged with voluntary, community and faith sector organisations and
the communities they serve, the study will look into the factors surrounding
‘employment’ such as: its importance to people’s welfare, not only as a way to
generate income but also in the sense of wellbeing, confidence and pride it
presents to people fulfilling a role. The other key issue is to focus on what
skills they have built.
At the nucleus of
the argument presented are a number of defining factors. Firstly, the UK is
experiencing an oversubscribed labour market with unemployment at an all-time
high, recent policy and pension reforms have raised the ceiling on retirement
giving older workers the opportunity to work longer, the UK is currently
experiencing the highest rates of youth unemployment leading to
inter-generational disparities within the economy and recession is sending
shockwaves of stagnation to EU partners producing a knock on effect on the
employment market on micro (UK) and macro (EU) levels (Powell, 2011).
Parallel to these
concerns is the model of engagement, participation and representation of older
workers (aged 55+) in light of political shifts and succession planning within
the employment market. As older people remain in employment a reduction in
opportunities for younger people to enter a competitive employment market
becomes increasingly the norm; this situation poses many questions on what this
means for the UK and whether this will lead to skills shortages and loss/lack
of development in terms of the evolution of knowledge and market growth?
A New Law, New
Hope?
There is also the
constantly changing environment defined by changes in government and government
policy as experienced in the impact of government changes to policy, pensions
reform, Pensions Bill 2011.
With the Bill
introducing key measures to:
-
Implement workplace pension
reform measures from the Making Automatic Enrolment Work Review;
-
Bring forward the timetable
for increasing the State Pension age to 66; and allow contributions to be taken towards the cost of providing
personal pension benefits to current judicial pension’s scheme members. (UK
Department for Work and Pensions Bill, 2011)
This paper aims to
explore the potential changes to the operation of older volunteers working in
the economy paired with national strategic change; encapsulated in within this
paradox is an evident and increasing need for the preservation of skills and
knowledge.
Themes for
consideration throughout the study include:
According to
current predictions, between 1950 and 2050 the global 60+ population will
increase by a factor of 10 and the 80+ population by a factor of 30 (Phillipson, 1998). Coupled with this, Bloom (2009) argues, these significant changes
could generally be explained by long-term age dynamics (shifts in birth and
death rates), declining fertility rates and crucially increased life expectancy
(global life expectancy has risen by 20 years over the last half-century).
Bloom also states these changes need not present a crisis for economies and
public policy. In OECD countries, aging is a modest problem rather than an
imminent economic threat. First, a demographic dividend’ means that aging would
result in an increase in the working population as a proportion of the total
population. While there will be some additional need to care for older people,
this will be off-set by the lessened caring burden for children/young people
among low-fertility, post-baby boomer generations.
The aging of
populations is also balanced by processes resulting in a ‘compression of
morbidity’ in that people are living longer, but spending fewer of their senior
years experiencing ill health. The compression of morbidity means that demands
for caring and health provision will be manageable, and healthy working lives
may be extended. Overall, the proportion of the population able to work will
increase.” (Bloom 2009: 9)
The UK demographic
profile, like most other EU countries, is characterised by an aging population:
current life expectancy for women is eighty-four years and for men eighty-one
years. (ONS, 2010). From the statistics presented it is anticipated population aging
will lead to a slowdown in labour force growth and within 20 to 30 years the
labour force may even begin to contract. The timing and size of this fall and
its impact on economic growth will depend crucially on future trends in the
participation rates of older volunteer workers.
Riach and Loretto
argue:
“There remains a lack of focus on the relationships between
paid and unpaid work and the self-management of older workers’ multifaceted
identities as workers, non-workers, disabled individuals or older claimants.”
(Riach and Loretto
103:2009)
This argument highlights exploring the complexity of social
processes and discourses may provide an insight into the success of failure of
initiatives to promote employability.
Dumay and Rooney say,
“the aging workforce crisis appears not to have been as significant as
anticipated because of the combination of improved processes and training of
new employees, allowing for knowledge transfer, making some old
knowledge redundant and creating new knowledge.” (Dumay
and Rooney 174: 2011)
Dumay and Rooney emphasise where
there are gaps in employability; they can only be filled by experience.
Research shows where there are changing profiles of employment; there is a need
for different skills and provides evidence for workers to upgrade their skills
throughout their working lives. The UK labour market is affected by supply and
demand. Evidence presented by D’Addio et al., shows
that retirement behaviour responds to incentives embedded in the pension
system. Financial incentives in both the tax and the pensions system play an
important role in the decisions of older workers to remain in employment or to
retire.
D’Addio et al., comment
that considerable pension reform has undoubtedly strengthened incentives to
continue working at an older age, further action is required on the demand side
of the labour market to ensure older workers who wish to work longer can do so.
(D’Addio et al. 625: 2011)
This argument
illustrates the demand for skills changes in response to globalisation and that
this correlation is not solely applicable to older workers as it is greatly
affected by changes in work organisation, technology and consumption patterns
in consumer markets. D’Addio et al., state:
“older workers are especially likely to experience a depreciation
or devaluation of their human capital” (D’Addio et
al. 631:2011).
It is in this area
where governments have been most active. Pension ages have increased and will
continue to rise in the future (Chomik and
Whitehouse, 2010).
Within the importance of being employed there are juxtaposing
views, from the perspective of the individual worker and from the perspective
of the economy.
In addition,
ageism has been blamed as a reason for early exits out of jobs for older people (Bennington
2001; Ilmarinen 1997). It has been argued that older
people are pushed out of the labour market as part of an ‘institutionalised
ageism’, where the possibilities and qualities of older workers are neither
used nor recognized by managers, supervisors and employers (Ilmarinen
1997, 2006; Townsend 2006).
In a speech
delivered to employers in the UK’s labour market by current Deputy Prime
Minister, Nick Clegg, following the pension reform of 2011 the continuation of
older workers was referred to as a way of boosting the economy:
“We want to give them the confidence to be open about performance,
about retirement with their employees. If you speak to many employers, they
value older workers massively. I don't think there
is some sort of in-built prejudice against older workers at all." (Clegg,
2011)
In relation to
this speech, research identifies changes to working policies and the fact that
the demographic distribution in Western countries is changing due to the
population’s longer lifespan and the falling birth rates, this has led to a
promotion of policies to encourage the participation of older workers in the
European Union (Sigg and De-Luigi 2007). The
political agenda to prolong working lives is principally driven by economic
arguments. However, for any future policies to lead to an intrinsic motivation
to want to remain in work, the voices of older workers express the desire to
combine work with non-work related commitments and identities.
Whilst the arguments highlight
financial implications, alongside the influence of supply and demand in a globalised economy they don’t shed light on how the UK is
going to maintain the employability of an aging population in an oversubscribed
labour market. The arguments also offer conflicting opinions on whether aging
workers should exit the labour market if financially able to retire or if they
are a resource which can be tapped into for future generations.
Parallel to this,
one of the key questions raised in this study is, are the UK’s labour markets
placed to cope with the changes in attitudes, culture and structure of older
workers?
Smith says that
turbulence and unpredictability in 21st century labour markets
arguably magnify the importance of maintaining employability. (Smith 279: 2010)
Drawing on Smith’s
research she points to three mechanisms for enhancing employability: identity
work training and networking, and working in unpaid and marginal paid
positions. Few of these activities are counted as ‘work’ because they are
mainly unpaid and often take place outside formal job structures.
Smith says that
the environment in which employability is created is ever changing, “as new growth sectors
generate employment opportunities and technological innovations generate demand
for new skills. The dynamic combination of layoffs and job creation creates a
condition of intense and continual labour market churning.” (Smith 63: 2010)
In the
destabilised economies as described by Beck (2008), Giddens
(1991), Sennett (1998) and others, people
participating in the employment market must take it upon themselves to learn
how opportunities arise, how to access them and invest time, energy and
financial resources to take advantage of them. This active cultivation of
social capital has arguably become essential for employment.
Kanter describes an
individualistic concept of employability as, “employability security is based
on a person’s accumulation of human and social capital – skills, reputation,
and connections – which can be invested in new opportunities that arise inside
and outside the employee’s current organisation. No matter what changes take
place, the theory runs, workers who continually improve their skills and can
make their abilities know throughout a network of firms are in a better
position to find employment – with the current employer, with another one or
with their own.” (Kanter 63: 1995)
Perceptions of job
insecurity have been driven in part by the structural changes described but
concomitantly by an employment culture of insecurity.
Smith argues, “in
the new economy learning about growth sectors, about demands for new skills and
how to acquire them, understanding how to access pathways to ‘good’ jobs,
finding jobs and holding onto them all rely on unique types of interactional and identity work.” (Smith 63: 2011)
The point that
Smith makes is that employability goes far deeper than generating an income for
the individual and boosting the economy through active and booming labour
markets. The role of employment links into a personal psychological contract
against which individuals measure their values, self-worth and identity. To be
connected to a ‘work culture’ for many people defines them and their social
capital. A number of identities can be arranged around ‘work’, around the
‘family’, the ‘self’ and ‘other life domains’. Congruence between personal
facets of identity and work-related ones manifests itself in the expressed
levels of commitment to the organisation, the work group and the profession or
occupation, expressed in the concept of multiple identities related to aspects
of work and the organisation (Ashford and Mael,
1989).
Exploring the
relationship between education and employability in UK labour markets the
retention of an aging workforce involves career management, training and
development as well as flexible, staged retirement (Phillipson
and Smith, 2005), as a result of this the organisational human resource
management (HRM) function often struggles to cope.
The concept of
training often relates to promotion, maintaining competitiveness in the labour market
and fostering organisational commitment, thus extending labour market
participation among older workers. The concept of ‘life-long learning’ is an
example of a personnel policy developed at organisational level, contrast this
with policy at a government level and it’s clear these initiatives vary from
pension reforms that limit early exit routes from the workforce through to
legislation against age discrimination and public campaigns to combat negative
stereotyping in the workplace.
The aspect of training
and capacity-building an aging workforce is closely linked to the
de-industrialisation of the UK’s economy and shift in labour markets.
As demographic
change and economic challenges relating to the financing of health
care and pension plans affect retirement policies, many older workers,
dependent on their gender, health and income, feel they must continue in the
labour market. Retirement related factors are variables as well as links to the
sustainability of remaining in the labour market. These variables are not only
dependent on older employees work performances, wellbeing and financial
conditions but also their attitudes and expected adaption
to retirement.
Alongside,
socio-economic debates concerned with the issue of rising the age of
retirement, retirement itself is subject to laws that in many cases establish a
statutory period in which to retire.
The research
presented in this study shows that over 50s tend to be the age group most
vulnerable to unemployment, however, with the current socio-economic climate
experiencing record levels of youth unemployment, the tables may be about
to turn.
Whilst extending
people’s working life may be seen as a key element in curtailing the rising
costs of public pensions, some consideration must be given to the role
of an aging workforce in the broader collective of citizenship.
The main
implications of these results are that employers and policy-makers should take
into account preferences about retirement when developing strategies to
encourage employees to postpone retirement.
Alongside the
financial implications, the study has shown that the work environment and
planning of aging workers social life during their retirement are important
factors involved in the decision to stay longer on the work force and without
consideration of these key areas the future of maintaining numbers of an aging
workforce remains uncertain.
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