Importance of Development and Learning at Work for a Long and Healthy Working Life
Föreläsare: Karina Glies Vincents Seeberg, The National Research Center for the Working Environment, Denmark
Dag och tid: 22 maj, 13:15 CET
Abstract: The demographics are shifting towards an older population, creating a present and future shortage of qualified workers. Denmark, along with other EU countries, has implemented political reforms over the past two decades to gradually raise the retirement age from 65 to 68 by 2030. With age, the likelihood of poor health rises, posing work challenges. As age increases, so does the number of chronic diseases, elevating the risk of long-term sick leave and early labor market withdrawal.
Work ability reflects the balance between job demands and employee capacity, with chronic diseases contributing to a decline in work ability. Sustaining good work ability is crucial to work until retirement with chronic illnesses. Adapting job demands and enhancing resources through skill development may strengthen this balance, contributing to work ability preservation, reduced sick leave, and prolonged labor market participation.
The project investigates if professional skill development can extend working life, reduce sick leave, and enhance work ability, given the correlation between work ability, illnesses, sick leave, and premature labor market withdrawal.
The impact of living in more or less age diverse neighbourhoods on the health and well-being of older adults in the UK
Föreläsare: Martin Hyde, Professor, University of Leicester, the UK
Dag och tid: 5 juni, 13:15 CET
Abstract: Intergenerational solidarity has been identified as a key factor for effective social functioning. However, evidence suggests that divisions between younger and older generations in many countries are widening. Residential age segregation is thought to be an important driving force behind this intergenerational division. As well as being problematic in their own right such divisions are thought to have wider negative social consequences, such as increasing loneliness and social isolation, weakening social cohesion and impacting on health and well-being. However, to date, these assumptions have not been empirically tested in large scale, nationally representative data. Nor have researchers examined whether residential age diversity has different effects for different age groups. To redress this, we examine the extent to neighbourhood age diversity is associated with i) loneliness, ii) neighbourhood cohesion and iii) physical and mental health for younger, middle-aged and older adults in the UK. Residential age diversity was measured using the Area Level Index of Age Diversity (ALIAD). This was linked to household and individual data in the UK Household Longitudinal Survey data (N ~50,000). For each outcome multilevel regression analyses were performed for the sample as whole and separately for those aged 16-39, 40-64 and 65+. Covariates included, area level deprivation, urban/rural, residential tax band, home ownership, household demographics, individual age, sex, marital status and financial situation. Descriptive analyses of ALIAD revealed that most people in the UK live in age diverse neighbourhoods. The results of the multilevel analyses are somewhat mixed. We found some evidence that greater residential age diversity is associated with perceptions of greater neighbourhood cohesion for the sample as a whole. But there were no significant associations in the different age groups. Nor did we find any statistically significant associations between neighbourhood age diversity and loneliness or physical and mental health outcomes. Overall, our findings suggest that the distribution and impact of neighbourhood age diversity, in the UK, at least is not a significant risk factor. However, more research is needed to explore this in other countries and with a wider set of outcome measures.
The Social Stratification and Consequences of Intergenerational Caregiving in European Families
Föreläsare: Marco Albertini, Professor, University of Bologna, Italy
Dag och tid: October 2, 13:15 CET
Abstract: TBA
Doing Retiring – The Social Practices of Transiting into Retirement and the Distribution of Transitional Risks
Föreläsare: Anna Wanka, Research Group Leader, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Dag och tid: October 16, 13:15 CET
Abstract: Retirement remains one of the major transitions within the life-course. Consequently, a vast body of research has focused on the retirement transition - much of which is quantitative in nature and concerned with retirement age and its effects (e.g. Wetzel et al., 2016) or (institutional) preconditions (e.g. Calvo et al., 2017). These studies exemplify how not only society and politics, but also research struggles with abolishing chronological age as central gateway to studying ageing (cf. Moreira, 2015).
In contrast, post-structuralist approaches in ageing studies understand retirement as contingent and negotiable (cf. Marshall & Katz, 2016). Applying practice theories (cf. Reckwitz, 2003; Schatzki, 2002) puts emphasis on the processual nature of retirement and the ‘in-between’ working and later life, asking: How do older adults organize, experience and ‘do’ retiring? Which human and non-human, discoursive and material actors are involved in re- organizing everyday life?
Empirically, a qualitative longitudinal study (2017-22) that follows 15 older Germans throughout their retirement process is combined with quantitative data from the German Time Use Survey (2008/09). Results show the multi-temporal and multi-agential arrangement of retiring, in which boundaries between (still) working and (already) retired are blurring. Future retirees regard the need to re-structure, and thus subjectively re-gain control over, their everyday lives as a central transitional task. Contradictory retirement discourses between well-deserved ‘golden years’ and productive ageing turns idleness into a guilty pleasure in this re-structuring.
