Cebulla, A;
Wilkinson, D;
(2019)
Responses to an Ageing Workforce: Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom.
Business Systems Research
, 10
(1)
pp. 120-137.
10.2478/bsrj-2019-0009.
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Abstract
Background: An ageing workforce is a challenge for businesses that are increasingly expected to adapt workplaces to enable employees to remain in work longer. Emerging evidence highlights employer practices to attract or retain older workers. This paper explores employers’ motivations for introducing measures to accommodate an older workforce in three European case study countries. Objectives: The objective is to illustrate and understand different approaches to, and stages in, adjusting workplaces to accommodate an ageing workforce. Methods/Approach: The study combines case studies, including site visits and interviews, with expert consultations. Results: The research finds marked betweencountry differences, with United Kingdom case studies highlighting a strong emphasis on age-neutral practices shaped by legislation; age-confident practices in Germany resulting from collaborative arrangement between employers and trades unions (with legislation permissive towards age discrimination); business in Spain remaining relatively inactive, despite evidence of people expecting to work longer in life. Conclusions: Diverging employer motivations and responses to the challenge of an ageing workforce risk a multi-speed Europe in age-confident workplace innovation. A concerted effort that draws on the multiple factors that motivate initiative would be required to achieve good working conditions for older workers across Europe.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Responses to an Ageing Workforce: Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.2478/bsrj-2019-0009 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.2478/bsrj-2019-0009 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, and provide a link to the Creative Commons license. You do not have permission under this license to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ |
| Keywords: | older workers, workplace adaptation, extended working lives, industrial relations, retirement |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10078999 |
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