Mind the gap. France. Employee perspective.

2017

Demographic change is changing the face of working life across the EU. The increased demand on a shrinking pool of workers to provide for the social needs of an ageing population is leading to increases in the employment rate of older workers and a lengthening of working life. Policy reforms have – on the whole – focused on raising the statutory retirement age and providing financial incentives for older workers to remain in work beyond retirement age. However, a range of other factors also influence workers’ decision to continue working into old age – including health and well-being, work–life balance, career prospects and job security, and working conditions such as autonomy, hours of work and psychosocial aspects of the workplace. This report analyses these factors in depth for the 28 EU Member States, using data from the latest European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS 2015) and in the context of Eurofound’s concept of ‘sustainable work over the life course’.

Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie, 2019

Job satisfaction at older ages A comparative analysis of Hungarian and German data Electronic supplementary material

The aim of this chapter is to examine whether company level changes affect differentially the quality of working life according to employees' age. We use data from a French linked employer-employee survey. The quality of working life is captured through three dimensions: the feeling of fair work recognition, the opportunity to learn new things at work and the feeling of work overload. We find that the impact of changes in the use of ICTs and management tools on the quality of work life of older workers have a less negative impact than expected. Our indicator of fair work recognition is the only one that is found sensitive to changes, with a lower frequency in changing firms compared with inert ones. This difference is not explained by differences in observable characteristics of older workers employed in the two types of firm. It is rather due to a differing contribution of employment relations and work organisation characteristics in shaping the balance between effort and reward in both contexts.

Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues

Despite the fact that population ageing in the European Union is in full swing, and policy makers are pushing for exdenting of working lives, there is a group of older people, whose employment potential in labor market ends up dormant. The phenomenon of early retirement is worthy of a deeper research from the point of view of human resources management, as employers facing issues of digital economy often lose a skilled workforce and labor market is depleted of the potential of this group. The article is focused on the research of three factors in relation to the desire to retire early: "job satisfaction", "job physical demands" and "afraid health limits ability to work before regular retirement in job". The influence of selected factors on the desire of workers to retire early is specified through quantitative analysis of data from the SHARE-Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe. Chi-squared test of independence, Cramér`s V for dependence tightness and standardized (adjusted) Pearson residuals are used for analyzes. Results show the strongest intensity of dependence in relation to the desire to retire early with the job satisfaction factor. There is a weak dependence tightness in factors of the job physical demands and the individuals` health limits within professional performance. The analysis shows that it is very important that employers try to make their employees satisfied with job, because the consequences of such an effort are reflected in the employees` decision making whether to stay in job or to leave labor market through early retirement.

1998

Many investigations have examined the relationship between age and job satisfaction. However, various types of relationships have been reported across studies: positive linear, negative linear, U-shaped, inverted U-shaped or inverted J-shaped, or no significant relations. Such conflicting results have left the true nature of the relationship unresolved. The present study used a large national probability sample of workers (N = 1,095) to investigate the shape and strength of the age-job satisfaction relationship. Results indicated a significant but weak positive linear age-job satisfaction relationship. That is, age failed to explain a substantial proportion of linear variance in our job satisfaction measure. This indicates that age, as a chronological variable, is not a viable predictor of job satisfaction. Future research attempting to explain age differences in job satisfaction should instead focus its attention on other more pertinent psychological variables associated with the underlying aging process.

Journal of Happiness Studies, 2012

This paper analyzes the levels of job satisfaction reported by older workers (aged 50-64) with and without disability by using an aggregating approach in which job satisfaction is seen as a combination of various job satisfaction domains (physical effort, time pressure, level of freedom, capability to develop new skills, support in the workplace, recognition of the work, salary, promotion prospect and job security). Using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, we estimate a two-layer model based on the interrelation between the different domains of job satisfaction and wherein the individual's overall job satisfaction depends on each of these domains. The results show that the levels of satisfaction with the recognition of the work, support in difficult situations and physical effort have a significant effect on the overall job satisfaction reported by limited disabled workers. For this group, the trade-offs between the domains recognition with work and support and satisfaction with salary are especially high. These findings can help organizations, managers and policy makers to design or modify current jobs to make them more attractive in terms of satisfaction for limited disabled older workers.

Revija za socijalnu politiku

This paper deals with the study of older workers' job satisfaction as a factor that, combined with other personal and job-related factors, can signi-ficantly influence the decision to postpone retirement when this decision is in the hands of an individual. Starting from the fact that the employment rate of older workers in Slovenia in 2011 was the lowest in the EU, the paper aims to establish the level of older workers' job satisfaction in Slovenia compared to the EU, analyse its dimensions, its specifics related to age, gender, sector of economic activities and type of profession, as well as ascertain what de-termines it the most. A statistical analysis of the results of the Fifth European Working Conditions Survey of 2010 reveals that Slovenia ranks 15 th among the EU member states in terms of older workers' job satisfaction, thus lagging behind the EU average. While Slovenian older workers, the same as their Eu-ropean counterparts, are most satisfied with doing useful...

Background and aims. This thesis took a life course approach to examining inequalities in quality of life in early old age using the French occupational cohort GAZEL. The cohort combines company administrative records with information from annual questionnaires for 20 625 electricity and gas industry employees. The thesis aimed to examine whether current circumstances, retirement routes, mid-life working conditions or occupational grade were associated with subjective quality of life, measured with CASP-19, in retired participants. Results. Cross-sectional and change analyses using multiple regression demonstrated that social support, financial adequacy and, above all, mental and physical health were strongly associated with quality of life. There was a graded relationship between occupational grade in mid-life and quality of life following labour market exit, a relationship which was largely accounted for by health and financial circumstances in retirement. After adjusting for occupational grade and social class, exposures to physical hazards and ergonomic strain were associated with lower quality of life following retirement; accumulated exposures to carcinogens were not. Pathways from working conditions to poorer quality of life via physical and mental health accounted for the associations between earlier strenuous and dangerous working conditions and quality of life following retirement. Retiring tended to improve subjective quality of life, particularly if it was from difficult psychosocial working conditions. Retiring in ill health was associated with worse quality of life; this retirement route was more likely for individuals who had poor working conditions. Continuing professional activities after retirement was associated with better quality of life, a retirement route more likely for individuals working in higher grades. Conclusions. The thesis demonstrated small but persistent life course influences of employment characteristics upon quality of life which appeared to be mediated via current determinants of quality of life.