Final Report Summary - ASPA (Activating Senior Potential in Ageing Europe) Executive Summary: The ageing of society and the workforce is one of the dominant developments in modern European societies. This development faces society with the challenge how to use the senior potential, both inside and outside the labour market. According to European governments and scientific experts labour markets are in need of higher participation rates, both of women and of older workers. The civil society may also need these 'younger' elderly as more women are participating in the labour market, have less time for care and volunteer work, while the share in the population of 'older' elderly who need care is increasing. From another perspective the growing share of older people puts up the challenge to safeguard the social inclusion of all of these people, even though they may be low educated and worn out after a life of hard work. This project examined the forces and mechanisms behind employers', civil society organisations' and governments' behaviour and the resulting societal arrangements. To that aim it has used large-scale surveys for the analyses of employers' behaviour, and desk research and interviews to map government behaviour. Statistical and focus group analyses were used to get insight in the participation and activity rates of people from 50 to 70. Next, the project tried to identify good practices at the company level, at the level of the civil society and at the level of (national or local) government policies that contribute to continuous investment in knowledge and skills throughout the life course, resulting in high activity rates for people between 50 and 70.The main conclusions that can be drawn from the project:- European employers are not ready yet to face the ageing of the European work force. Little action is taken to invest in older workers, to encourage them to stay until national official retirement ages (if any) or to hire older workers.- There seems to be a macro-micro paradox: at the macro level governments, unions and employers' organisations agree on the necessity to raise older workers' participation and increase retirement ages, but individual employers primarily look at that 'their neighbours' and to the government to take action.- Societies that have a more 'inclusive' labour market, i.e. a labour market where there is room for and acceptance of workers who cannot live up to the highest productivity standards, are more successful in raising older workers' participation rates and postponing retirement than societies with a more 'exclusive' labour market.- Organisations that are prepared to accept more diversity among workers and recognise that productivity has different dimensions and can vary over the life course are more successful in integrating older workers and benefiting from their potential than organisations that cherish one single image of the 'ideal worker'. - Organisational policies aimed at older workers often depend on the actions of a few dedicated staff members, e.g. an HRM-manager or the manager of a division. The lack of mainstreaming of these policies makes the continuation and success of such policies dependent on the presence of these few stakeholders- People between 50 and 70 contribute heavily to volunteer work in organisations belonging to the civil society. However, the cleavage between the world of paid work and the world of volunteer work is still very large. Both worlds could benefit from more integration that would allow for a more gradual transition from paid work to the world and the time of retirement and volunteer work.- Due to the economic crisis that hit hard many European economies as well as many European firms during the last few years employers' and governments' minds have been more on combating unemployment than on the underlying trend of a ageing societies and an ageing work force. This not only resulted in a low priority to retain and hire older workers, but also in some reluctance among employers to participate in a research project.Project context and objectives:Project contextBoth the European Union and national governments have set targets with respect to sustainable participation of workers and the knowledge-based society. The 1994 EU Summit was the first to underline the need to improve employment opportunities for older workers. The 1995 Council Resolution on the Employment of Older Workers called, for the first time, on the European Commission to organise an exchange of information, experience and good practice concerning the employment of older workers. The conclusions of both the Cardiff (June 1998) and the Vienna (December 1998) European Councils emphasised the need to pay special attention to develop a skilled and adaptable workforce. The issue was added to the 2001 Employment Guidelines (European Commission, 2001) and was also a point of discussion of high priority during the Barcelona European Council in spring 2002. In March 2001 the European Council of Stockholm defined, for the first time, a quantitative and highly ambitious target in this respect - in addition to the overarching strategic goals set at the Lisbon European Council - by determining that by the year 2010 the employment rate of older workers should rise to 50% (from 26.3% in 2000) (European Council, 2001). At the Barcelona European Council it was clearly stated that responsibility for tackling issues arising from an ageing population will need to be shared between the generations: 'A progressive increase of about 5 years in the effective average age at which people stop working in the European Union should be sought by 2010' (European Council, 2002).The issue of the improvement of the employment prospects of workers during later stages of their career has recently been tackled again under the headline of active ageing by a special report of the Commission on 'Increasing labour force participation and promoting active ageing' (European Commission, 2002). Active ageing is regarded as the central concept the EU developed to deal with an increasingly ageing society (European Commission, 2002). It encompasses an increase in the labour force participation of older workers as well as the promotion of productive activities in the life phase of retirement such as the involvement of citizens in and commitment to matters of the civil society.The prolongation of working life is not only regarded as an important instrument to secure pensions in the future but also as a decisive answer to both the expected demographically induced labour shortages as well as the changed age composition of the workforce in many EU countries.Later on, pertinent requirements have been stipulated at EU policy level in terms of the Employment Guidelines 2003, specifically guideline 5 entitled 'Increase labour supply and promote active ageing' (European Council, 2003). The EU Employment Guidelines emphasise that action is needed at all levels and by all the actors involved to promote opportunities for the ageing workforce. At the same time they call for preventive and active approaches in order to meet the challenge of a changing economy and labour market.In many individual Member States, early exit has begun to be rethought. In the majority of (old) Member States, e.g. in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK and Sweden, there have been pension reforms to curtail or to restrict access to early exit schemes and programmes. The motivation for these changes was cost containment and financial balance in the face of an ageing population (see OECD, 2000). Thus, national policies are promoting the raising of the number of working years without necessarily implementing a systematic approach to cope with the consequences for the individuals involved. But it is evident that a prolongation of working life demands a restructuring of the entire individual work biography, e.g. to reconcile work and private life by means of parental leave or leave for caring, and to create resources, such as educational leave, to maintain skills currency (human capital).Since the end of the 1990s, public policies and workplace practices have begun to change, towards improving employment prospects and participation rates of the ageing labour force (Walker 1999; ETUI, 2002, 2003; OECD, 2003). Several Member States are applying comprehensive ageing strategies and some have set national targets to increase the average exit age (France, Finland and Portugal, cf. European Commission, 2004). This rethinking towards more active strategies reflects an increasing awareness of trends in demography, labour force participation and changing market needs. In 2004 ten countries became full members of the European Union, of which eight countries are former communist states from Eastern Europe. Recent research shows that both in Eastern and Western Europe, the vast majority of citizens are pessimistic about the consequences of population ageing. Countries differ in the extent to which as a response, the early retirement culture is reversed. While in the Netherlands the exit culture came to a halt, France and Germany are still lagging behind in this respect. In the new member states concerns with regard to population ageing are caused first of all by current problems of the old-age social security as well as health care services and, as a consequence, by low standards of living among elderly. As the population of Europe ages - in all countries, though at a somewhat different rate - overall labour supply can be expected to fall, unless age and sex specific participation rates will increase. But even though policy makers at the government level may agree on and be convinced of the necessity to stimulate participation, it depends on (individual) workers' and especially employers' behaviour whether this macro level goal can and will be actually achieved. Though there are examples showing that the social partners reached agreements promoting the integration of older workers into the labour force, the points of view of the trade unions and the employers' organisations still differ widely on how and to what extent this should be achieved. On the one hand, the trade unions are concerned about high levels of unemployment and still favour early exit for certain groups of older workers; while at the same time they advocate improvements in working conditions to make a prolongation of working life feasible (Hutsebaut, 2003). On the other hand, employers are demanding more flexible workforces and flexible working time schedules in order to reduce costs, whilst also increasing competitiveness and extending service provision. Individual employers have used early exit schemes as a strategic tool to reduce the size of workforces, though employers' associations are concerned about the costs of early exit. Altogether, it is the organisational level that matters and that is why this project focuses on the organisational level. So, increasing mandatory retirement ages will be likely to have only limited effects if it is not combined with measures that stimulate employers to employ the aged worker. Most decisions how to deal with ageing workforce will have to be taken within individual organisations, or will, at least, be implemented within these organisations. So far, employers had the opportunity to turn to younger cohorts of workers, as these cohorts were abundantly available in the labour market. This strategy however, is bound to fail, as employers will be competing for an ever-smaller pool of youngsters. Eventually, they will have to turn to older workers, but simultaneously the older workers' productivity gap has to be bridged. When looking at the future it may be even more important to prevent the rise of such a productivity gap by taking proper measures throughout the life course. Eventually however, there comes a moment when people definitely leave the labour market and retire. No matter whether this happens at the age of 55, 60 or 65 increasing numbers of citizens in Europe have still many more or less healthy years left.Project objectivesTo get more insight into the issues raised above the project Activating Senior Potential in Ageing Europe (ASPA) formulated a threefold aim to guide the multidisciplinary research:1. The first aim is to get insight on the influence of organisational behaviour, organisational and public policies on the use of senior potential (men and women) over fifty.2. The second aim is to get insight into activity rates of people between 50 and 70, both in paid labour and unpaid activities (in particular care and volunteer work), related to policies with respect to human capital investments over the life course.3. To identify policy strategies for organisations (firms and civil society organisations) and governments to stimulate the participation of older adults and secure human capital investments over the life course based on a comparison of different national strategies and good practices at the organisational level.The first goal has been translated into the following research questions:a. Which are the views of employers in different countries on older workers, what do they consider to be the major effects of an ageing workforce and how can these views be explained?b. What kind of policies do employers in different countries have with respect to older workers (stimulating, permissive, special arrangements) and how can these differences be explained?c. How do government policies influence employers' behaviour? Are organisational policies in line with and adding to governments' policies? d. What government initiatives in Europe can be considered successful in stimulating older workers' participation and the sustainable use of their potential in and outside the labour market?e. Can differences in national participation rates of older workers be explained from the differences we have found concerning questions a. to d. to what extent? What other factors, tells scientific literature us, should be included in these macro-analyses (like unemployment rate, replacement ratio, industry mix etc)?The second goal has been translated into the following research questions:f. What are the participation rates in paid work and the activity rates in unpaid work, other activities of different groups (distinguished according to gender, educational level, age category, rural or urban, etc) of individuals between 50 and 70 in the different participating countries? How do older males and females balance their activities in the paid and unpaid labour market in ageing Europe?g. What kind of national government policies, arrangements and programmes can be distinguished with respect to the participation rates of not yet retired and activity rates of retired individuals, respectively (stimulating, facilitating)?h. Can differences in national participation and activity rates of still working and retired people, respectively, be explained from individuals' investment behaviour over the life course, employers' behaviour before these individuals were retired and from government policies before (cf. e.) and after retirement (cf. h.)?The third and final goal has been translated into the following research questions:i. How do organisations in the civil society deal with the changing behaviour of older adults and what strategies do they use to attract older people and maintain their skills?j. What policy strategies for firms/civil society organisations can be considered good practices from the perspective that they stimulate the participation and inclusion of older workers?k. What policy strategies for firms/civil society organisations can be considered good practices from the perspective that they secure human capital investments over the life course?l. What governments' policies, arrangements and programmes are successful in stimulating the participation of older workers?m. What governments' policies, arrangements and programmes are successful in securing senior skills of men and women over the life course?n. What policies contribute to reducing the gender gap?o. What do these organisational and government strategies have in common? Do they interact with each other? Can they be considered an integrated part of the welfare system that governs a country?p. Could these strategies be implemented in all EU Member States and what conditions have to be fulfilled to do so?Project results:The scientific results from the project Activating Senior Potential in Ageing Europe (ASPA) can be summarised under the following headings:a. Employers' views and actions with respect to older workers (based on the results of a survey among over six thousand employers in eight European countries);b. Organisations and older workers (based on the results of a series of almost one hundred case studies in eight European countries);c. Active ageing in the civil societyd. Older citizens' activity rates and policies targeted at increasing/improving active ageing a. Employers' views and actions with respect to older workersIn all countries participating in the ASPA-project there seems to be an awareness that in the near future employers will have to deal with the ageing of their workforce, although Italian employers do not perceive the ageing population to cause labour market problems. Nevertheless, only a minority of employers report ageing is at least to 'some extent' an issue in their human resource management. Besides this, in all of the countries included in this study, both recruitment and retention levels of older workers are rather low and employers' actions to extend working lives have a stronger focus on retention than on recruitment of older workers. There also seems to be a normative barrier in employers' behaviour: recruitment and retention beyond the statutory age of retirement is not applied by many employers.Norms on the retirement age may play an important role in employers' disinclination to hire and stimulate older workers to continue working until or even beyond the existing retirement age. According to employers, at age 58 a worker is considered to be too young to retire, while at 67 years of age a person is considered too be too old to work more than 20 hours a week. The upper age limit is well above the average age of retirement and even above the statutory retirement age in all countries. This result seems to indicate there is room to raise retirement ages as far as employers are concerned, although this may be rather on a part-time than on a full-time basis. One of the forces causing employers' reluctance to hire and stimulate older workers to continue working until or even beyond the existing retirement age may come from the perceived changes in costs and benefits as the workforce ages. The majority of employers associate an ageing staff with a higher knowledge base, but also with higher costs and lower productivity levels. Apparently, an expected increase in know-how does not translate into higher productivity.Although demotion and lifelong learning are suggested by scientists and policy makers as a way to bridge a gap between labour costs and productivity, the enthusiasm for actual implementation of these measures is not shared by employers. Except for the UK, employers do not often apply demotion of older workers to balance pay and productivity. Also additional training to prevent a decline in productivity is applied by only a minority of employers. Lifelong learning is often perceived to be the key solution to enhance productivity at older ages. The number of organisations offering training programmes for older staff differs highly between countries, but is on average about one fifth. In general, employers most frequently implemented flexible working hours as a measure aimed to accommodate older workers. Organisations in several countries, such as the Netherlands and Denmark, do take various measures to accommodate the needs of their older workers, for instance by reducing the workload or offering possibilities of extra leave for older workers. Early retirement schemes are applied by 17 percent of European employers. In the Netherlands and Poland about one third of employers apply early retirement schemes.In the past, European institutions and national governments have been main drivers in creating awareness about the necessity of extending working lives and setting targets on labour force participation of elderly. Being such an important player in the field, it may very well be possible that employers consider further government action desirable in the process of extension of working lives. The three most effective measures to increase labour force participation of older workers - according to employers - are incentives to combine work and retirement, the promotion of lifelong learning and wage subsidies for older workers. Van Dalen et al. (2010) found employers are reluctant to support later retirement and there is a discrepancy between aims formulated at the level of the European Union and member state countries with respect to stimulating the labour force participation of older workers and the attitudes of individual employers. In our study, we find that although employers expect an increase of the average retirement age at the country level, a much lower share of employers expects the average retirement age will increase in the own organisation. These results seem to indicate that employers think extending working lives will become necessary and employees will extend their working lives in some 'macro-world', but this will not happen in their own organisation. This could be seen as a form of NIMBY, which is an acronym for 'not in my backyard'.European employers do not show a uniform pattern in their attitudes and behaviour towards older workers; national contexts turn out to be highly relevant. Outcomes do not follow a 'European way' and are not distinguishable by type of welfare state. Attitudes and behaviour of Swedish employers e.g. differ considerably from their Danish colleagues (both belonging to Esping-Andersen's (1990) social-democratic welfare state) and equally large variation exists between German, French and Dutch employers (all belonging to the continental/conservative welfare state type). Any solutions along the line of 'one European way' of stimulating extension of working lives and increasing labour force participation of older workers therefore seems to be - at least at this point in time - not viable. The results are not distinguishable by economic climate either. In earlier research, Conen et al. (2011) showed that changes in the external labour market affect employers' recruitment and retention behaviour towards older workers.b. Organisations and older workersThe central role of organisational perceptions and behaviour in extending working livesIn-company approaches are the core of an 'active' and future-orientated age-management policy. Whether older workers might be able to stay in working life longer or not is primarily determined within organisations. In this context the arrangement of adequate workplaces which meet the needs of older workers is of particular importance (for example, in terms of workload, working time, work environment, and job design). The analysis of case studies from eight countries concludes that demarcations between the dimensions of age management are blurred and that these demarcations differ depending on the national context. Possible criteria for highlighting case studies have been: the fulfilment of objectives, the transferability of measures, their innovative character, and consistency in age management policies. Overall, the case studies offer a good selection of measures in almost every dimension. There are good measures in every country, although access to companies may be more difficult in some countries than in others and the assessment of the quality of good practice may differ. It is also a positive sign that there are several examples of comprehensive age management strategies, notably in Germany, the U.K. the Netherlands and Poland. In the absence of integrative strategies, isolated measures may also serve the purpose of integrating workers of any age into employment.Training and knowledge transfer and the part 'in between'What seems clear is that much effort in our case-study organisations is devoted to the areas of training and knowledge transfer. Somewhere in that experience is also the notion of lifelong learning, partly because, from the point of view of the individual older worker, personal career development involves both.Measures in the field of training, lifelong learning and knowledge transfer are most often evident in our case studies. However, their situations, as observed, seem to grapple with, on the one hand, 'training' and, on the other, 'knowledge transfer'; the idea of 'learning' plays at best an ambiguous and at worst a non-existent part. This scope for capitalising on the underlying competences of older workers through promoting their continuing work-based learning is a particular area requiring more thinking about policy and practice. This is different from a focus on 'training' them for development or different tasks or ensuring they are adequately 'de-briefed' in relation to their existing knowledge and skills.Age-management comparisonsMeasures in the ten identified dimensions are neither typical of a given branch or country. There are good practice examples in every country and in every branch. Nevertheless, clustered solutions per branch or some typical foci per country have emerged in the analysis. Overall there is a good mix of branches, although there were countries focusing on specific branches (construction in the case of Germany, health and social services in the case of Italy). Rather than differences between branches, certain similarities within a branch could be found depending on the economic and institutional framework. We must be careful in drawing from a particular set of case studies conclusions that appear to represent the situations in eight countries and numerous economic branches. The following comments can, at best, be suggestive. With regard to the legal form of the organisation, privately-owned, profit-oriented firms dominated by far (they formed two thirds of the sample). Private firms seem rather to externalise personnel adjustment problems while public organisations tend to seek to solve them internally, e.g. with the help of switching to individually-chosen work shifts in transportation companies in order to decrease stress and enable a better work-life balance.Firms with more than 250 workers are over-represented among our cases. However, good practice in age management has been implemented in firms of any size, although the challenges and facilitators are different. Smaller organisations are more autonomous in their decisions and can react more immediately to approaching problems. There are also national idiosyncracies, which are visible in dimensions of good practice followed by countries and in the role social partners at firm level play in the introduction of initiatives. Some implications for policy-makers, corporate actors and social partners- Branch challenges and common trends across countries (in health services, in public transportation companies, in other liberalised markets such as energy, post and telecommunications), suggest that trade unions at European level are in the course of developing transnational and European-wide agreements, e.g. on disadvantaged workers' groups. - Areas within public administration, such as the police, army, fire brigades or the judiciary, are faced with age-related problems but are under-represented both in our cases and in national databases of good practice (with the apparent exception of the Netherlands and Germany). Good practice in these areas (e.g. horizontal job mobility for older executives) should be promoted more strongly.- Also worth promoting are innovative solutions for jobs with limited tenure, like classical ballet or elder care. Those challenges can be approached both from the angle of career development or health management (e.g. advice and rehabilitation through a specialist centre to help to prevent injury and promote good health). - In order to embed good practice in a sustainable way in corporate strategies and practice, company actors could transfer successful initiatives in enabling us to visualise better the effects of age management. All in all, while the issue of age-management has a relatively prominent place in debates in some countries (e.g. Germany, the Netherlands), elsewhere it has still a low profile. The transferability of international benchmarks and practices between Member States is rather uncritically assumed (cf. European Foundation 2006; OECD 2006). The prevailing differences between welfare state models have tended to be neglected and recommendations need to be more specifically tailored to national differences in socio-economic policy environments. A pre-condition for the success of further EU- and national policies on active ageing is also a stronger involvement of the social partners at the European, national and sectoral levels.Drivers of age managementThe drivers for the adoption of age management initiatives in the ASPA 'good practice' case studies are those which come from within specific problem-solving behaviour by management in response to internal and/or external stimuli. Apart from the specific cases emphasized there are some more general conclusions: - Macro-drivers often work alongside drivers that are more specific to the organization;- There are many examples of age-management initiatives starting in a period of labour shortage where the impetus to make the best of the older workforce is strong but then moving into recession and labour surplus;- Sometimes the 'baton' of age-management practice is handed from one area of HR policy to another as the business environment places a new mix of pressures on the organisation and previous age management initiatives are weakened whilst others come to the fore;- However, the survival of age-management practices takes various forms and there can be evidence of resilience in the age management approach through what seems to be a progressive transfer of a 'practice sensitivity' to age-related issues honed in one area to other areas, albeit sometimes very modestly;- However, equality and diversity regulations are beginning to temper age-management strategies that favour seniors by extending similar rights to flexibility of working arrangements, task allocation, opportunities for training and development, etc. to other workforce groups.Although it is possible to be quite positive about some good practice cases in terms of the pathways they have followed, the experience of the present economic crisis sounds a general note of warning. The importance of age management can be downplayed especially when youth unemployment is at very high levels. Yet it is in the interests of all workers in the long term to ensure that organisational mechanisms exist that sustain productive working lives beyond their current horizons in many countries. The ASPA project has sought to introduce more recent evidence of age management practice and develop ways of analysing it. It is hoped that this will help those at national and EU levels to have a better understanding of its dimensions and the sorts of pathway taken by the organisations whose behaviour they wish to influence.c. Active ageing in the civil societyAge - and diversity - management of volunteers is a concept quite unfamiliar to volunteering organisations. Initiatives to this aim are particularly lacking in some countries, e.g. Italy and Poland, not only because of the lack of a specific 'human resource' unit within the organisations, but also due to different cultures of volunteering, different welfare states and history/tradition of the voluntary activity, and, among other things, different definitions of volunteering and voluntary organisations. For example in the UK in general, whilst recognising that volunteers fall into different demo-socio-economic groups and organisations will have different mixes of volunteer, those volunteer organisations in the case studies did not structure their thinking strongly around the age dimension, and overall, 'age management' was not a term that was familiar to interviewees.As for the age-balance of volunteers in organisations, it is important to clarify that many organizations feel that it is important to increase the overall number of volunteers to broaden their volunteer base, so the volunteer roles were reported to be open to anyone who matches the required capabilities and skills. Age balance of volunteers, for example, is not especially pursued by many Italian and German organisations, because their attention primarily focuses on services to be provided. Some similar examples are provided also by some Swedish organisations, where age diversity and diversity management in general are not important at all, the philosophy being instead 'to find the right person for the task'. Having clarified that, beyond the fact that voluntary organisations officially do not pursue age management strategies, it has to be underlined that were found a lot of informal dynamics referring to age management strategies, especially in connection to the wish of obtaining a more suitable age-mix of volunteers.The study evidenced in particular that in most countries some organisations mainly made up of older volunteers complain about a lack of younger volunteers or volunteers in their midlives and often they would invest to involve them. The most reported motivation for this was that a better age balance of volunteers would benefit the organisational activity. Nevertheless, in many cases to attract younger volunteers for this kind of organisations does not seem an easy task, and sometimes attempts in this direction are characterized by failure. The fact that organisations where mainly older volunteers are present try to involve more younger people, does not mean obviously that the recruitment and the contribution also of older volunteers are not important components.Some examples of the opposite mechanism (i.e. younger-profiled organisations trying to attract more older volunteers) were also available. One Italian younger-profiled organisation, for example (an organisation providing mainly first aid in emergency situations that declares itself particularly concentrated in fighting intergenerational barriers), is trying to attract some underrepresented categories of volunteers: older people, women and immigrants, in a sort of diversity-management (to give all people the opportunity to volunteer) more than age-management. A 'young-profiled' German organisation has developed a strategy to cope with the demographic change, and its initiative '60 plus' is targeted to older volunteers: the association sent letters to all members above 59 to learn about their interests and their potential for civic commitment.Questions asked about the organisational opinions on older volunteers gave us the opportunity to have an idea on what volunteer managers consider as costs and what as benefits of employing older volunteers. As for positive opinions (i.e. benefits in the organisational view) it is worth specifying that especially organisations with a high share of older volunteers appreciate them and quite obviously consider them useful, since without them they simply cannot function: the organisation exists only thanks to them, and for this reason they are precious. Another strong argument to underline the preciousness of older volunteers is that, being retired, they have more time to volunteer, compared to younger and busy (because of family and work duties) ones, and they volunteer for longer spells, offering continuity. Even for this time-related reason, older volunteers are considered more available. However, it is not only a matter of time. Another rooted opinion is that they have (and bring to the organisation) life experience, skills and knowledge, so that older volunteers should be encouraged to use their skills.Nevertheless, also negative and in some cases stereotyped opinions were expressed on older volunteers, that may potentially bring to discriminatory practices. Many other negative opinions come more or less from the just mentioned consideration: changes can be troublesome since they would like some methods to be maintained forever; they tend to be less inclined to push boundaries or change things compared to younger people who may challenge established structures or ways of working harder; they concentrate all the time on the same activity; they want to hold for too long leadership roles; they have too little desire to communicate their experiences, also due to a lack of trust in the younger generation; they are not eager at integrating newcomers; they are unwilling to listen and so on. Other reported negative manners are temperamental ones: older volunteers tend to 'rule the roost' (overbearing manners), they are stubborn, and they are not always compliant. Sometimes, in order to minimize efforts to manage older volunteers, coordinators try to match couples of volunteers (young-old) or older volunteers with paid staff, since in this way they have the possibility of supplementing, helping and exchanging experience each other. Even if voluntary organisations do not declare any specific age-related 'formal' barriers to volunteer in older age, some barriers can be deduced from the case studies, among which 'being able to perform a given task', with implication on health, education and qualification, and so more widely with the so-called ongoing 'professionalization' of the voluntary sector. Indeed, volunteer organisations are increasingly evolving towards modern social companies, in some ASPA countries (e.g. Denmark, UK and Germany) being this more evident than in others. This can contribute to exclude low educated and qualified, and less healthy people that often are represented by older people. Among other barriers, there is the difficulty of reconciling the activity with other commitments, e.g. caregiving, grandparenting and working for the labour market. In some countries such as Poland, where there is a very low activity rate of older people, the lack of knowledge about volunteering and the possibilities of staying active after retirement play a role as a barrier, together with the passive mentality of older generations and the burden of the past (the socialism played an enormous role here). Even if third sector organisations mainly did not specifically act to involve and retain older volunteers yet, some of them tend to recognise that in the next years there will be a larger supply of older volunteers due to the population ageing and the increased longevity, so that the time being in some way come to strategically behaviour accordingly. According to some organisations, a progressive ageing of volunteers will mean also to put deeper attention on their health and higher absenteeism due to illnesses, but, in many cases, all this will have moderate impact on organisations, in some interviewed people's opinion. In spite of this, age management in strict sense does not seem a real priority for organisations in the future, even if according to several respondents a balanced age structure has positive effects. Also for this reason, several organisations are striving to make the voluntary work more attractive to older volunteers, in order to recruit and retain them, explaining them that they can be useful in the organisation even in older age.There are several lessons to be learned about the role that can be played by voluntary organisations and by policy makers in promoting volunteering in older age. Policy makers should be aware that organizational practical actions to capitalize the competences of older volunteers should be considered according to the kind of welfare state/non-profit regime in different countries, so it is important to create/develop these actions differently from a country to another. Results obtained in the study underline e.g. that in Northern European countries volunteering has a more self-expressive connotation, even if these results should be mediated considering cultural differences: even a lot of older Italians carry out (mainly intra-generational) selfexpressive activities, but they do not consider themselves as volunteers, since in the latter country volunteering is culturally meant as 'helping others in need' whereas to give time in more self-expressive activities is not felt as volunteering.It has furthermore to be taken into account that both organizations and volunteers would potentially benefit from a greater professionalism in volunteer management, but it is important to pursue professionalization together with a (life-course) growth of competencies of volunteers at all ages.It has been recognized by volunteer managers that an age-mixed volunteer workforce may facilitate both the climate and the work in the organisation, so volunteers of different generations should be encouraged to collaborate and to work together, making this more attractive voluntary work.The relationship between labour force participation and volunteering in older age seems to be very important. Since involving people in some volunteering in earlier life can increase their willingness to engage in volunteering later when they have more time (e.g. after retirement), companies can facilitate (older) workers in accessing volunteering by developing employee volunteer programs (currently a rare phenomenon in Europe compared to the US). More generally, when older workers are next to retirement, it is important to provide them all relevant information on opportunities to volunteer: a continuity between working life and volunteering might be ensured exploiting one person's professional knowhow through voluntary activities after retirement. It is at the same time important that older volunteers are given the possibility of trying new tasks, experiences and responsibilities not necessarily linked to their previous working life, if they want. It is also important to consider that in the future the more people become older, the more both caregiving demand and volunteering supply in older age emerge, so it could be important to provide more support to (especially women) family caregivers during their informal commitment, in order to growingly induce them to volunteer, especially when they end their caregiving.d. Older citizens' activity rates and policies targeted at increasing/improving active ageing Major Trends in the Employment Situation of Older WorkersFrom the early 1970s to the mid 1990s in most advanced economies there was a clear trend for people, or at least men, to withdraw earlier and earlier from the labour market, reflecting both lowering of standard pension ages and, in several EU member states, a massive use of early retirement schemes or alternative exit routes such as disability pensions or unemployment benefits. Increases in employment rates since 1995 have only partially reversed these falls. It should, however, be noted that countries like Italy even in the early 1970s already had a low employment rate among elderly male workers of below 50 per cent, while the decline started later in the other seven countries. Despite this overall decline, employment rates for older men have only fallen below 50 per cent in the case of France Italy and Poland.If we also take into account older women's employment rates we find three countries are far from reaching the EES target of 50 per cent, France, Italy and Poland - failing to reach even 40 per cent in 2009. In the remaining countries employment rates of older workers (55-64 years old) are significantly above the 50 per cent target. The Nordic countries as well as the UK display the highest employment rates among elderly workers (reaching even 70 percent in Sweden). Recent pension reforms have reversed the trend to lower pension eligibility ages, with several countries introducing gradual increases in pension ages for both men and women. When these reforms are completed, most will have a standard retirement age of 65 years, 67 or more in Germany, and the United Kingdom. In 2010, France has finally levelled off the minimum age for a full pension to 65. Effective retirement ages are still on average even lower than the current statutory pension ages, except for men in Sweden. In France the effective retirement age is even below 60 independently of gender and below 60 years for women in Poland, indicating the still large-scale use of early retirement schemes or other equivalent benefit-based exit routes such as unemployment insurance (France, Poland). The decline in the effective retirement age, evident in most of our selected countries from 1970, has been reversed at the turn of the new century but the withdrawal age is still significantly younger than in the 1960s and 1970s. The narrowing of gender gaps in exit ages over the last 40 years implies some form of convergence in exit behaviour of men and women but in practice, if retirement is to facilitate complementary leisure for couples, women are likely to exit earlier as the male spouse is still on average a few years older. These long-run trends in exit ages do not only reflect the impact of changing policy regimes but also the effect of rising living standards and the related increased demand for leisure. Main Features of Labour Market for Elderly Workers (55-64 years old and 65 years and older)As mentioned previously the employment rates for elderly workers (55-64 years) in our selected countries have been falling until the middle of the 1990s, after which they have started to recover during the last decade. A first salient feature appears as we focus on employment rates for elderly workers according to their levels of educational attainments. It becomes clear that higher schooling generally is associated with considerably higher employment probabilities at old age, as employment rates are significantly higher for people belonging to the level of education ISCED 5-6 (University degree or similar) than level 3-4 (College degree) and level 0-2 (Elementary school). There are several reasons why highly educated individuals often stay longer on the labour market: They are less exposed to work injuries and unhealthy working conditions, they participate more often in further training and life-long learning, they are less exposed to selective redundancy processes in the manufacturing sectors, they enter the labour market later than lower educated workers, and they may also be able to balance their working-time and leisure in a way that improves their chances to stay on the labour market at old age. All our selected countries displays an increasing share of atypical employment forms as workers reach the ages above the standard age of retirement. Especially in Italy and Poland, there are high shares of self-employed workers (in Italy over 30 percent of male workers 55-64 years, and over 70 percent of male workers 65 years and older). Self-employment seems often to be a bridge between ordinary employment and retirement, as self-employees often work part-time and the workers continue to work for their former employer or in their own firm. It might also be the case that self-employees have a higher propensity to continue to work after 65, because they are liquidity constrained and have less generous pension conditions, or simply because their work is a central part of their way of life. In a similar pattern as for the self-employees, the share of workers who are temporary employed increases significantly at 65 years and above. Temporary employment is largely connected to transitional labour markets when young peoples enter the labour market and older peoples are in the process of leaving the labour market. Labour market regulations are central for explaining the general prevalence of temporary employment as well as to what extent it is common among older workers. Large divergence exists in employment protection for elderly workers across our selected countries. Among the liberal regimes, Denmark is marked by relatively weak employment protection and fairly liberal hiring and firing practices. In some segments of the Danish labour market manual workers can be fired from one hour to the next or from one day to another. At the other end of the spectrum, older workers in Germany benefit from high employment protection and job security due to preferential collective agreement regulations and a higher share of open-ended contracts than younger workers. In Sweden also the application of a seniority principle (last-in first out, LIFO) regarding dismissal appears also as to be a good instrument to protect older workers during recession. However, at the standard age of retirement, employment law in general no longer protects older workers. Employees in the UK may request to work beyond the age of 65, but employers do not have to acquiesce to this request, and they do not have to justify their refusal. Similar constructions can be found in Sweden, where the employer can terminate the employment contract with one month notice, without any legally binding reasons when the employee turns 67 years old. The incidence of part-time employment is a reflection of the different national work-life balance strategies, and mirrors how mothers combine employment and family commitments. In countries where marriage and children is still associated with a drop in employment rates, the incidence of female part-time employment is consequently lower (France, Italy, Poland) than in countries where part-time employment is a way for mothers to combine employment and family commitments (Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark). Part-time employment can also be an indication of weak labour market attachment. We generally see that part-time employment is equally prevalent for women in the age group 50-64 as for women in prime age (25-49 years), and then increases further for 65 years and above. In all selected countries, senior citizens' unemployment rates are significantly lower compared to the population under 25. When comparing the unemployment rate of 25-49 and 55-64, there are no major differences, except in Germany where a weak increasing unemployment for older workers can be observed. One should however remember that open unemployment for elderly workers in many cases has been replaced by public early retirement schemes or other exit routes. In addition, individual pension agreements with their former employer are widespread alternatives to open unemployment. This is commonly used in Italy, where job protection measures such as the Income redundancy fund provides an informal early retirement. In the UK, central and local government employees aged 55 and over have been able to take early pensions if they leave as part of a redundancy exercise. A second central feature is that the duration of unemployment increases by age. The shares of unemployed who have been unemployed for long periods are particularly high for older workers in Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands. The unemployment insurance systems have in many cases been contributing to the long-term unemployment of elderly workers, by de-facto functioning as an early exit/retirement pathway. In several countries, these pathways of early exit from the labour market has lately been restricted or closed, in Denmark since 2007, Germany in 2006 and in Sweden since 2001. Other regulations on the labour market can increase the long-term unemployment. In Poland, a regulation that prevents employer from dismissing an employee four years before standard retirement, which very often works to the disadvantage of older unemployed as employers do not want hire people approaching this age. This seems to be an important obstacle against activation of unemployed 50+ in Poland.Different public policy mixes produce differing results with respect to active ageingPublic policies implemented since the beginning of the 1990's and affecting older workers are a 'policy mix'. They may include several dimensions: pension system, with structural reforms or only parametric reforms, sickness, invalidity and disability, labour market legislation, active labour market policy, and some complementary policies such as the prohibition of discrimination, occupational health policy and care for dependent persons. In all of the eight countries revised here, public policies are rather multidimensional, but in different ways and with various timings.A comparative study of the public policy mixes that have been implemented in these eight countries helps us distinguish four mixes that produce different results in relation to active ageing.Denmark and Sweden: A mixture of a wide range of active employment policies and welfare reforms for making these systems more supportive of employmentThere are active employment policies for massively investing in preventive actions with regard to human capital throughout the working life. At the same time, welfare is reformed to create more favourable conditions for the employment of older wage-earners and more appropriate to a context of demographic ageing but while maintaining a good level of protection and of fairness between generations. In Sweden as in Denmark, active labour market policies have been relaunched along with welfare reforms. The employment policies seek to reduce the factors that push the least prepared out of the labour market as a way of adjusting to fluctuations in the demand for labour. The welfare reforms seek to make welfare systems more supportive of work and to limit the factors contained in these systems that pull people out of the labour market.The United Kingdom: a contradictory policy mix Activation programmes for employers and for stimulating the demand from companies for senior workers amounts to 'exhortations', for instance, the Age Positive Programme and Code of Practice on Age Diversity. We do not observe, in the United Kingdom, an integrating between public employment and welfare policies. Quite to the contrary, there is a tendency to consider that 'activation' can be a substitute for conventional income maintenance programmes.Netherlands and Germany: Put an end to the early exit culture and develop activation programmes for seniors through active employment policies coordinated with welfare reformsAfter have provided generous compensation to persons who withdrew early from the labour market, these two countries have worked on the paradigms that govern their actions. The Netherlands started changing course to steer its way out of early exit culture during the second half of the 1990s. A series of welfare reforms were undertaken to narrow early exit pathways, the major pathway running through the system of disability insurance. The Dutch welfare reform concentrated on restructuring the institutional pathways for early exit from the labour force. It did not, in an authoritarian way, shut down these pathways, nor attack fundamental entitlements. The latter were kept but as part of a new system that lent strategic weight to the rational decision-making of the persons involved, this being possible thanks to new policy instruments less having to do with 'rights' than providing incentively (mainly financial ones).France, Italy and Poland: A single focus on the lever of welfare policies with the aim of financial sustainabilityThis fourth mix concentrates on reforming pension systems and on narrowing early exit pathways or phasing out these schemes. There are no active employment policies with coordinated actions on the demand and supply of senior labour; or if there are, they are incoherent. France, Italy and Poland are our examples.Lessons for action: Recommendations for active ageing It is necessary to break free of a short-sighted view which sees pension reforms as the major response to demographic ageing. Evidence in our comparison shows that effective policy responses have to be comprehensive and address both labour market and welfare issues. A longer life span is not a societal catastrophe but good news. It raises, however, new questions about the distribution of work and welfare over life and across generations. As a consequence, it must be addressed from a life-course perspective, and it entails changing the paradigms that guide interventions by public authorities. The major issue has to do with working out a new pact of sustainable solidarity between generations on the questions of retirement and employment in a long-life society. Pension reforms do not by themselves provide employment opportunities for all ages nor even prolong the working life. To establish this pact, a multidimensional, preventive strategy with regard to employment policy must be implemented for maintaining the working abilities of employees of all ages. It requires inventing a new management of the population that is neutral with respect to age. Age-based management has reached its limits. We must switch from it to a management of age diversity and of synergy between generations. This objective entails the following programmes to be implemented simultaneously:- Provide career prospects and employment opportunities for all age-groups with special attention to horizontal mobility.- Develop job training programmes related to career itineraries with a focus, if necessary, on wage-earners over the age of 40. Lifelong learning is a key issue.- Improve working conditions as well as health and safety at the workplace in order to make longer working life sustainable.- Redesign the organization of work so as to boost cooperation between age-groups at the workplace and favour the transfer of skills and experiences between younger and older wage-earners.These measures are for all ages. They seek to keep the individual's fitness for work and employability from being impaired. They stimulate the demand from companies for the labour provided by seniors by making it more attractive. They also stimulate the supply of senior labour by making work more bearable and by motivating older wage-earners to remain in the labour force. These measures should mainly be preventive if they are to be effective and to be for all age-groups. We know that remedial programmes are less efficient even if they proved to be necessary. Wage-earners between 40 and 50 should be targeted to make up for any loss of employability and mobility and to make the labour of 50-year-old efficient and attractive. These actions are essential for convincing firms that ageing is not to be systematically associated with lower productivity. The 'productivity pay gap' is a major impediment to senior employment. Owing to it, a priority is to encourage companies and labour organizations to reduce the impact of seniority on wages. We recommend that the factors weigh negatively, for firms, on the demand for senior labour be analysed. These are the obstacles to be lifted in order to stimulate the demand for senior labour. Along with this coherent set of active labour market policies, measures for activating welfare systems, including retirement pension system reforms, should be implemented to reinforce the supply-side of senior labour. All these measures have to be implemented in a 'proactively' with strong educational efforts directed toward all parties. Besides, actions with incentives have proven more effective, as we see in the Dutch case, than actions that are only coercive, as we see in the Dutch case. Far from being a fatal catastrophe, the demographic challenges of ageing and longevity could lead to developing a social Europe that is more generous and cohesive, with a renovated form of solidarity between generations. Demographic trends do not imply that pensions inevitably shrink and be served later in life, or that the welfare state be dismantled. They can be an opportunity for building a society for all ages of life, one with more solidarity and more attention for 'diversity'. Achieving this is demanding. It calls for a strong determination on the part of public authorities. When examining the countries in northern Europe that have taken up this challenge, we notice that their economies are innovative. They have fully entered into the new knowledge-based economy and have modernized by developing a social investment state for supporting the autonomy and aptitudes of individuals throughout the life course.Potential Impact:Based on the results of the ASPA-project government and organisations, both in the public and the private sector, may want to rethink their policies with respect to older workers. One major result is the finding that organisations (at the micro level) do not necessarily endorse and implement strategies developed at the government (macro) level to improve the participation of older workers and contribute to higher actual retirement ages. Organisations may be worried about the labour costs - productivity gap, they may wonder about older workers' competencies to deal with technological change, their flexibility etc. Public policies may provide information on older workers productivity and if this productivity falls short of organisational requirements joint efforts of governments, organisations and workers themselves (represented by unions) may be made to improve (future) older workers' productivity (through human capital investment, life long learning, attention for employaibility). The succes of older people's participation in volunteer work may stimulate organisations to experiment more with gradual and more flexible retirement in combination with volunteer work. The report on the case study work in organisations shows that organisational policies may succesfully contribute to the prolongation of older workers' careers. Organisations may select measures that appeal to them to improve older workers' position. However, it should be noted that it is hardly ever the case that one or two single measures 'do the trick'. Usually, the whole climate in the organisation matters and measures come as a package to be succesfull.Project website: http://www.aspa-eu.comProf. Dr Joop J. SchippersUtrecht University School of EconomicsFaculty of Law, Economics & GovernanceAdam Smith Building, Kriekenpitplein 21-223584 EC UtrechtThe NetherlandsTel. +31-030-2537116http://www.uu.nl/faculty/leg/nl/organisatie/departementen/departementeconomie Postal address: Utrecht University School of Economics, P.O. Box 80125, 3508 TC Utrecht, the Netherlands. Related documents Final Report - ASPA (Activating Senior Potential in Ageing Europe)
