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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Transition from work to retirement in EU25 | | Author(s) | Asghar Zaidi, Mattia Makovec, Michael Fuchs |
| Corporate Author | ESRC Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion - CASE, Suntory-Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines - STICERD, London School of Economics and Political Science |
| Publisher | STICERD, London, 2006 |
| Pages | 25 pp (CASEpaper 112) |
| Source | Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE. http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/case |
| Keywords | Employment of older people ; Retirement policy ; Transitional phase ; Retirement ; European Union. |
| Annotation | The policy agenda of extending working lives requires a holistic understanding of factors underlying older workers' decision to withdraw from work and to retire. This paper presents employment patterns and trends of older people across European Union (EU) Member States, and identifies policy initiatives that would encourage more flexible and later retirement. Descriptive empirical evidence from the EU Labour Force Survey indicates a broad range of experiences in EU countries with respect to employment of older workers (those aged 50+). Strikingly, in most of the EU15 countries, close to half of those aged 50+ are either unemployed or inactive, relying on either early retirement pensions or social security benefits. Recent pension reforms in a number of these countries have increased the retirement age, which is likely to induce older people to work longer. There is already some evidence that the effective retirement age is on the increase, and that the increase in older workers' employment is stronger for women than for men, and for the more highly educated. In most instances, older workers either tend to be in full-time employment or inactive, with very few occupying intermediate positions. Although there is some evidence of a gradual transition towards retirement, there is still a relatively minor proportion of the work force taking advantage of this, as well over 70% of men and around 55% of women in employment in their early 60s worked 35 hours a week or more. The policy aim should therefore be to encourage 'flexible and later retirement'. Additional incentives need to be provided so that people are not only able to move between jobs in later working life, but also be able to work part-time, without losing their entitlement to benefits (such as early retirement pensions). Such policy initiatives will enable workers to avoid the phenomenon of a 'cliff-edge' fall into retirement that many of them often face. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-070116210 B |
| Classmark | GC: G5: 4MT: G3: WFC |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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