The ‘Older Worker’ and the ‘Ideal Worker’: A Critical Examination of Concepts and Categorisations in the Rhetoric of Extending Working Lives

Clary Krekula () and Sarah Vickerstaff
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Clary Krekula: Karlstad University
Sarah Vickerstaff: University of Kent

Chapter 2 in Extended Working Life Policies, 2020, pp 29-45 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Policies supporting longer working lives have to a great extent described older peopleOlder people as the problem. In this chapter we challenge this description by looking critically at some of the assumptions underlying the extending working lifeWorking life agenda. The chapter begins with a discussion about the homogeneous representations of increased life expectancy, where we show that the neglect of growing differences in longevityLongevity takes privileged aging as the starting point. Next we discuss the use of the concept of genderGender equality equalityEquality gender to illustrate how male life courses are taken as the norm. The chapter then considers how increased individualization and the conditions that work organizations provide frames older peopleOlder people as all the same leading to widening inequalities amongst those in retirement. All taken together, extended working lifeWorking life leads to be an individualization of the risks of working lifeWorking life . Based on an analysis of the debates at the country level we further argue that the extended working lifeWorking life agenda is a top-down process and a globally spread implementation of an economically based political project.

Keywords: Individualization; Neoliberalism; Life expectancy; Gender equality and extended working life; Older worker (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-40985-2_2

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-40985-2_2

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