Gender, age and flexible working in later life

In many countries economic and social concerns associated with ageing populations have focused attention onto flexible forms of working as key to encouraging people to work longer and delay retirement. This article argues that there has been a remarkable lack of attention paid to the role of gender in extending working lives and contends that this gap has arisen because of two, inter-related, oversights: little consideration of relationships between gender and flexible working beyond the child-caring phase of life; and the prevailing tendency to think of end of working life and retirement as gender-neutral or following a typical male trajectory. The findings of a qualitative study of people aged 50+ in the UK challenge some of the key assumptions underpinning the utility of flexible work in extending working lives, and provide insight into the ways in which working in later life is constructed and enacted differently for men and women

Ageism and Employment: Controversies, Ambiguities and Younger People's Perceptions

This paper traces the emergence and evolution of the concept of ageism with respect to employment matters in the UK, and challenges some features of the emerging concept as defective and undermining of efforts to eradicate age discrimination in employment. Also revealed is some loosening in recent years of the association of the term ‘ageism’ with older employees. This latter observation informed the focus of our empirical work, which examined the views of 460 Business Studies students concerning age and employment. A significant proportion had experienced ageism directly in employment, and a large majority favoured the introduction of legislative protection against age discrimination, with blanket coverage irrespective of age. Though negative stereotypes regarding older workers were by no means uncommon among the sample, little firm evidence emerged of intergenerational tensions or resentment towards older people. The concluding section considers the policy implications of our findings, including the relative merits of weighting policy responses towards older employees. It is argued that initiatives restricted in this way, and further constrained by commercial imperatives and macro-economic objectives, are likely to prove divisive and self-defeating as a means of combating ageism.</jats:p