Uncertain Futures: Managing Late Career Transitions and Extended Working Life

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The various transitions from work to retirement have undergone radical transformation over the past few decades. From a period when individuals were encouraged and looked forward to retiring early we have entered an era when living longer is presented as an opportunity, or an obligation, to work longer and extend our working lives. A review of the research literature on the extension of working life has identified a variety of factors implicated in individual decision-taking. These include: health status, pension provision, caring responsibilities, opportunities for flexible work and other external and individual factors. Statistical models using these determinants have left much of the variance in employment between individuals unexplained, because of the difficulty of capturing the complexity of factors in each case. The aim of this study is to contribute to knowledge about the processes and factors which exert influence on working in later life with the aim of enhancing policy development and employer practice.The ending of the default retirement age (DRA) opens up a radically different environment for the individual and the employer: both are entering periods of uncertainty in exploring work options for the future. The transition from work to retirement is no longer well-institutionalised but much more subject to a myriad of organisational and individual pressures which may be unpredictable; as such these transitions carry new risks both for employers and employees. This proposal from a multidisciplinary team will use a mixed methods approach to develop a richer picture of what is happening at the end of working life.These issues will be addressed through a series of work packages:WP1: International literature and policy review; to what extent are similar developments being studied and tracked in other parts of Europe, Australia and the USA.WP2: Analysis of existing data sets (English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), National Child Development Study (NCDS) and Health and Retirement Survey (HRS);WP3: The collection of new data through organisational case studies; andWP4: The synthesis of data and theoretical development: the data will be used to gain a clearer understanding of the interaction between individual and external determinants in shaping later life work transitions.The research will enhance our understanding of the range of later life work transitions, i.e. gradual retirement, bridge jobs, returns to retirement ('unretirement') and will develop theoretical approaches to the new forms of risk and uncertainty in the middle and later stages of the life course.The research consortia includes early, middle and later career academics from a variety of academic disciplines which provides the opportunity to benefit from the insights, approaches and methodological variety that multi-disciplinarity brings as well as from the inter-generational transfer of ideas. The team is also in a position to offer excellent development opportunities to two post-docs and two PhD students who it is hoped will go on to enrich the research community in the field of older workers and establish their own high quality research careers.In addition to traditional academic outputs the dissemination will also include the development of more practical tools useful for research users. These will include guidance for groups including human resource managers on factors to consider in later life working and ergonomists and occupational health professionals on work capacity changes and workplace and work organisation changes that can be considered.