‘I Find it Daunting. . . That I’m Gonna Have to Deal with This until 60’: Extended Working Lives and the Sustainable Employability of Operational Firefighters

Valerie Egdell, Rima Hussein, Deborah Harrison, Anna Katharina Bader and Rob Wilson
Additional contact information
Valerie Egdell: Northumbria University, UK
Rima Hussein: Northumbria University, UK
Deborah Harrison: Newcastle University, UK
Anna Katharina Bader: Northumbria University, UK
Rob Wilson: Northumbria University, UK

Work, Employment & Society, 2023, vol. 37, issue 3, 721-739

Abstract: While operational firefighters in the UK fire and rescue service traditionally retired in their 50s, their working lives are now extending. However, external pressures and the emotional and physical demands of firefighting work, lead to questions about whether operational firefighters will be able to extend their working lives. In this article, we engage with Van der Klink et al.’s sustainable employability model, which focuses on situations that allow individuals to make valuable contributions through their work and reveal how working lives can be extended. We consider implications of the characteristics of operational firefighting work, individual circumstances and contextual factors for the extension of working lives. Drawing on interviews conducted with firefighters, crew managers and watch managers working in a UK fire and rescue service, we highlight the unsustainability of many future working lives because of wellbeing and organisational pressures.

Keywords: extended working lives; fire and rescue service; firefighters; sustainable employability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170211041300 (text/html)

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:sae:woemps:v:37:y:2023:i:3:p:721-739

DOI: 10.1177/09500170211041300

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Work, Employment & Society from British Sociological Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().