EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Ageing and Work in Canada: Firm Policies&ast

Victor W. Marshall and Joanne Gard Marshall
Additional contact information
Victor W. Marshall: Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute on Aging, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Joanne Gard Marshall: Dean and Professor, School of Information and Library Science, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, 2003, vol. 28, issue 4, 625-639

Abstract: In Canada, public policy sets only a very broad framework concerning older worker issues. Few Canadian firms have explicit policies dealing with the ageing of their workforces but many firm policies have unanticipated consequences for older workers and the age composition of the workforce. Focusing on downsizing, we draw on five Canadian case studies of firms in different sectors and with varying policy initiatives. We emphasize the importance of firm-level policy formation and note that demography, technology and the economy do not have highly determining roles in corporate policy formation. There is little evidence of explicit managerial concern for older worker issues. However, some firms actively, and others functionally, promote a weakening of the ties linking employees to the firm. This breaking of the old contract between firm and employee signals a shift toward greater individualism, and has structural and social psychological consequences for the life course. The concept of the progressive career, involving long-duration employment with a company and successive promotions up a corporate ladder, is eroding. To contextualize these findings, we briefly describe the Canadian population and relevant economic, labour force and public policy data. The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance (2003) 28, 625–639. doi:10.1111/1468-0440.00250

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/gpp/journal/v28/n4/pdf/2500250a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/gpp/journal/v28/n4/full/2500250a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:gpprii:v:28:y:2003:i:4:p:625-639

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/finance/journal/41288/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice is currently edited by Christophe Courbage

More articles in The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice from Palgrave Macmillan, The Geneva Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:pal:gpprii:v:28:y:2003:i:4:p:625-639