Description:
Chapter 7 reports qualitative interviews with older women about the pursuit of an active, fulfilling and productive retirement, and the mechanisms that promote these outcomes. Contrary to notions of the blended lifecycle, analysis reveals a stark division between paid work and retirement for many women at the same time as an ongoing commitment to socially valued and productive albeit unpaid activities that form a portfolio career. Furthermore , analysis reveals an increased sense of autonomy and control over decision making among retired women that contrasts with their experiences of paid employment.
Description:
With current policy concerns about shortfalls of labour supply and effects on the social welfare system due to population ageing, there is a need to understand the factors that shape women's choices about if, when and how to retire. Recent trends indicating the increased workforce participation of women demand new policy responses to the end of careers and retirement transitions to sustain acceptable levels of participation and productivity. This book is innovative in that it will examine constellations of factors that disadvantage or advantage women's career and retirement trajectories against a backdrop of public policy efforts to extend working lives.
Description:
Chapter 8 reports qualitative interviews with older women, drawing from the concepts of biographical work-life balance and portfolio careers. It focuses on older women who were in part-time work but who self-identified as having made a transition to retirement. Many had longstanding careers and stable networks, accrued skills and financial resources, supported a well-endowed quality of portfolio lives, whereas those who experienced ‘unbalanced’ portfolio retirement were more likely to be lacking resources from their working lives. The analysis reinforces the notion that retirement should be viewed as a process and not an event and that it is impossible to tell a single story of women's post-work transitions.
Description:
With current policy concerns about shortfalls of labour supply and effects on the social welfare system due to population ageing, there is a need to understand the factors that shape women's choices about if, when and how to retire. Recent trends indicating the increased workforce participation of women demand new policy responses to the end of careers and retirement transitions to sustain acceptable levels of participation and productivity. This book is innovative in that it will examine constellations of factors that disadvantage or advantage women's career and retirement trajectories against a backdrop of public policy efforts to extend working lives.
Description:
Chapter 6 reports older women survey respondents’ expectations about retirement; their financial preparation for retirement; and factors that pushed them out of the workforce such as declining health and poor working conditions. Older women workers demonstrated a generally positive orientation to retirement. However, financial preparedness was a concern, with a significant proportion reporting that their understanding of their superannuation was poor. Findings with regards to self-esteem and social contact point to the need to support older women in building post-work identity and structures outside of work.
Description:
With current policy concerns about shortfalls of labour supply and effects on the social welfare system due to population ageing, there is a need to understand the factors that shape women's choices about if, when and how to retire. Recent trends indicating the increased workforce participation of women demand new policy responses to the end of careers and retirement transitions to sustain acceptable levels of participation and productivity. This book is innovative in that it will examine constellations of factors that disadvantage or advantage women's career and retirement trajectories against a backdrop of public policy efforts to extend working lives.
Description:
This book reports on a large mixed-methods project Retiring Women: Understanding Older Female Work-Life Transitions funded by the AUstralian Research Council and three industry partners. The project aimed to explore, firstly, transitios into, within and out of the labour market from the perspectives of older women workers, their employers and industry stake-holders across three industry sectors, and secondly, the development of policy related to the recruitment and retention of such workers in the Australian workforce.
Description:
With current policy concerns about shortfalls of labour supply and effects on the social welfare system due to population ageing, there is a need to understand the factors that shape women's choices about if, when and how to retire. Recent trends indicating the increased workforce participation of women demand new policy responses to the end of careers and retirement transitions to sustain acceptable levels of participation and productivity. This book is innovative in that it will examine constellations of factors that disadvantage or advantage women's career and retirement trajectories against a backdrop of public policy efforts to extend working lives.
Description:
Chapter 4 reports the experiences of older women survey respondents in terms of job satisfaction, work-life balance, perceptions of working hours and what determined these, perceptions of treatment by managers and co-workers, perceptions of labour market age barriers, and participation in skills development activities. The findings are indicative of relatively benign workplace environments. Job satisfaction was high and women generally appeared able to juggle work and other responsibilities. Working hours were a concern for some women, particularly those in casualized employment. Participation in learning and development activities declined with age and was more common among those with higher skill levels. Workplace discrimination was not a major feature of the experiences of these women.
Description:
With current policy concerns about shortfalls of labour supply and effects on the social welfare system due to population ageing, there is a need to understand the factors that shape women's choices about if, when and how to retire. Recent trends indicating the increased workforce participation of women demand new policy responses to the end of careers and retirement transitions to sustain acceptable levels of participation and productivity. This book is innovative in that it will examine constellations of factors that disadvantage or advantage women's career and retirement trajectories against a backdrop of public policy efforts to extend working lives.
Description:
Chapter 9 explores conceptions older workers, drawing from interviews with human resources managers and expert stakeholders. Analysis revealed pervasive discrimination based on age and gender and a lack of recognition of the diversity of older workers. They are generally understood in essentialized terms as a single group sharing certain stereotypical attributes. An essentialized discourse of decline underpins representations of older workers. It is argued that the idea of the older worker needs to be problematized.