Sustainable Work in an Ageing Perspective, Gender and Working Life Course

Abstract

This chapter develops a gender perspective on older workers’ working life courses and yields a contrasting picture of ageing at work. If gender disparities are the outcome of widely differing work situations for women and men they are also influenced by the unequal distribution of domestic work and the tasks of caring both for older and younger generations. Men and women’s working life courses and trajectories are embedded in institutionalized pathways and normative patterns. They participate in the world of work with specific position and defined social role. The chapter shows how working trajectories impact on health among the over-50s, and changing workforce exit norms. Finally, it points out the need to take account of gender-differential career and non-career paths and to redress the inequalities and injustices in this area. The analytical framework of this chapter relies on the concept of sustainable work considered from a life span perspective. The analysis uses data of the last wave of the European working conditions survey (2015).

Introduction

This chapter examines men and women’s working life courses, how they impact on health among the over-50s, and changing workforce exit norms. While working and employment conditions are increasingly recognized as key issues in ageing at work, gender disparities are still under-considered. These are not only the outcome of horizontal (between sectors of activity) and vertical (between job categories) segregation that produce widely differing work situations for women and men. More broadly, women and men’s ageing at work is influenced by the unequal distribution of domestic work and the tasks of caring both for older and younger generations. Men and women’s working life courses and trajectories are embedded in institutionalized pathways and normative patterns. The analytical framework of this chapter relies on the concept of sustainable work considered from a life span perspective. The analyse uses data of the last wave of the European working conditions survey (2015). After a presentation of the concept of sustainable work over the working life course, it briefly describes the characteristics of women and men working in the run-up to retirement. Then it considers financial security and the working trajectories of older workers. The next point deals with how arduous work differentially affects women and men, with a particular focus on the long-term effects. The final point discusses the influence of unpaid work and the unequal division of gender roles on ageing at work.

Sustainable Work Over the Working Life Course

In a context of demographic ageing, longer working lives, and the development of contemporary work-related illnesses, including musculoskeletal and psychosocial disorders, a new way of apprehending working conditions has gradually moved out of the scientific field to enter the political field: long-term or sustainable work.¹ This concept, which tends to replace that of quality of work, originated in the notion of sustainable development, defined in the Brundtland Report as follows: it is development that ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (WCED, 1987: 39, para. 49). This approach has been applied to the way companies operate, and in particular to the nature of work.

The concept of sustainable work arose within the Swedish research programme SALTSA² and more specifically in the framework of the international research project ‘From intensive to sustainable work systems’ coordinated, from 1996 to 2007, by the National Institute for Working Life (NIWL) in collaboration with labour organisations. The first studies produced by the researchers involved were synthesised in a reference work entitled Creating Sustainable Work Systems (Docherty et al., 2002). In this document, the notion of ‘sustainable work system’ refers to a system that can ‘maintain and reproduce the given human and social resources or even extend them’ (Docherty et al., 2002, 101), a definition consistent with a logic similar to that of the Brundtland Report.

Thus, unlike the so-called ‘intensive’ work system, the ‘sustainable’ work system must be able to regenerate and develop the human and social resources that it mobilises. When that reference work was being written, the intensive system seemed inadequate, since the organisation of work and the way in which the companies associated with it operated were placing increasing pressure on an ageing workforce. The field of reflection and action on sustainable work arose from these contradictory pressures.

Moving into the scientific field, the concept of a sustainable work system gave birth to a reflection on the notion of sustainable work, which resulted in a refocus on the quality of work in all its dimensions, and a strengthening of the notion of individuals’ trajectories. The approach to sustainable work therefore involves taking into account the effects of working conditions – cumulative over time – and their relationship with private life in the long term. Such an approach combines the analysis of work and the focus on individuals as a whole, with all their characteristics, their trajectories and the constraints that weigh on them.

The authors of a report entitled Sustainable work and the ageing workforce (Vendramin et al., 2012) include in their analysis framework a set of variables aimed at a better understanding of the ‘sustainability’ of work. To the traditional parameters defining the quality of work (Eurofound, 2002), they add health variables, subjective components connected with the relation to work, and context factors. Their analytical framework includes five axes: socio-economic security; working conditions; health; the expressive dimension of work; the balance between working/non-working time. This perspective combines work characteristics, circumstances of the individual, and the broader socio-economic and regulatory context, such as pension schemes or family policies.

The approach of sustainable work guided the creation of the Eurofound Work Programme 2013–2016 as well as the 2016–2017 campaign of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (OSHA) entitled ‘Healthy Workplaces for All Ages’. Progressively a focus on life courses and trajectories was added to the sustainable work approach. The purpose was to make time and context more salient. Life courses refer to individual experience, situated within a sequence of institutionalised events which take place in the lives of individuals and which play a part in the direction of individual trajectories (Elder, 1994; Giele & Elder, 1998; Hendricks, 2012; Mayer, 2009). In this chapter the focus is on a domain of the life course: the working life course. The concept of trajectories associated to this approach refers to sequences of roles and experiences (Elder et al., 2003). The socio-structural framework for life course analysis developed by Levy and Bühlmann (2016) is particularly relevant for our approach. These authors consider life course as a sequence of participation profiles. Individuals who participate in a social field occupy a specific position in this field with a defined social role. Participation in social fields is multiple and a life course can be considered as a movement through social structure.

Trajectories are made up of transitions which mean changes in state or role. Nowadays working life includes several transitions between jobs and between employment status, both voluntary and involuntary. The relationship to work changes throughout the life course, for very different reasons, not only raising children. Availability for work declines at points over the life course, such as those associated with poor health, skills becoming obsolete, losing one’s job, responsibilities for the care of dependent relatives or grandchildren, or engaging in education. Men and women choose the paths they follow during their working life, yet choices are always constrained by the opportunities shaped by social institutions and culture.

In its Concept paper (2015), Eurofound’s working definition of ‘sustainable work over the life course’ means “that working and living conditions are such that they support people in engaging and remaining in work throughout an extended working life. These conditions enable a fit between work and the characteristics or circumstances of the individual throughout their changing life, and must be developed through policies and practices at work and outside of work” (p. 2).

Taking into account this framework that combines working conditions and circumstances of the individual, the following sections provide an overview of working conditions in Europe and their evolution along different life stages, from a gender perspective. It is based on the data of the sixth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS). However, the EWCS data do not allow a follow-up of the work trajectories of the individual, although one can make hypotheses based on a comparison of the situations of employees of different ages.

The EWCS is carried out every 5 years by the Dublin-based European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), the number of participating countries growing with the enlargement of the European Union. The first questionnaire in 1990 contained some 20 questions, the most recent around a hundred. The most recent wave available took place in 2015. This sixth survey interviewed nearly 44,000 workers in 35 countries. Its findings provide detailed information on a broad range of issues, including exposure to physical and psychosocial risks, work organisation, work–life balance, and health and well-being.

Short Overview of Women and Men Working in Career Wind-Down

The activity rate of women and men in the 50–64 age group is increasing. For the European Union in 2019 it represents 73.4% of men and 61.3% of women (Fig. 7.1). Since the guidelines laid down by the European Commission at the 2001 Stockholm Summit, the employment rate of the 55–64 population has become the flagship policy indicator for older worker retention. However, the rise in employment rates is not due to older worker retention policies alone. It also results from two other factors related to how the labour market works: the general increase in the female participation rate and rising educational levels. The female/male employment rate is correlated with educational level: better educational attainments equate to a higher employment rate. And the last 10 years have witnessed a significant rise in men’s and especially women’s educational levels. To this must be added a country-specific factor: raising women’s legal retirement age to equal the male age which has boosted the rise in the female employment rate in the past decade.

Fig. 7.1

Employment of women and men in the 50–64 age group (2019, EU28). (Source: LFS, 2019)

If we examine the occupational distribution³ of older workers we see a sharp gender difference in the jobs done by workers aged 50–64 (Fig. 7.2). This figure clearly illustrates the gender occupational segregation, which is slightly more pronounced among older than younger workers. Women are more concentrated than men in a handful of occupations: 15.5% in administrative occupations, 13.7% domestic cleaners and helpers, 11.9% in education and 8.7% personal care occupations – these four occupational categories account for half of all employed women aged 50 and over. The three last are characterized by strenuous and tiring physical occupations and emotionally stressful work.

Fig. 7.2

Percentage of total wage employment of women and men in the 50+ age group, by occupational categories (EU28, EWCS 2015). (Source: EWCS, 2015)

The employment rate is calculated as the share of employed persons in the population of a given age group. There are many reasons for non-employment among older workers: registered unemployment, work incapacity or sickness, retirement, being out of the labour market due to family or caring responsibilities, and many other reasons besides. Figure 7.3 compares the structure of the male and female population aged 50–59 by work status. The 50–59 age group was chosen as being the point at which employment rates visibly begin to decline and decisions whether to stay in or leave the labour market are taken.

Fig. 7.3

Nature of work and non-work, women and men aged 50–59 (EU28, 2012). (Source: FLS, Eurostat database 2012 (ad hoc module), author’s calculations)

An examination of this figure prompts an additional remark on gender-variant employment rates. Much of the difference can be seen to be due to self-employed women, but the overall employment rate is 77% against 64% – the bulk of the difference being therefore attributable to self-employment which is 18% for men and 9% for women (average for EU28). In many EU countries – the Nordic countries, the Baltic States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Hungary, Bulgaria – i.e., 11 out of the 28 – the female wage employment rate in the 50–59 age group is the same as or above the male rate.

There is relatively little gender difference in the all-EU28 share of unemployed, work incapacitated or retired persons. By contrast, the proportion of non-work due to family or caring responsibilities is much higher among women than men (8% compared to 1%); like the “other reasons” (9% versus 3%). The final career years of workers still employed in their 50s are not incident-free ones marked by stability or voluntary mobility.

Professional trajectories of women over 50 are much more heterogeneous than those of men of the same age, with manifest differences between countries. They incorporate, with significant variation from one country to the next, earlier or later entry into the job market, interruptions to careers of various lengths, and the duration of periods of working part-time (Molinié, 2014). These trajectories are inscribed within differentiated contexts, and the differences are fixed within a diversity of regulatory methods, bringing together public policy, family solidarity, gender relations and the operation of the job market. These approaches have allowed many “gender social contacts”, with marked differentiation in terms of the modes of care for young children and dependent adults, and the forms of women’s professional activity, in conjunction with their family situation (Letablier, 2011; Anxo et al., 2007 quoted by Molinié, 2014).

Financial Security, Career Paths and Retirement

Some questions included in the EWCS 2015 provide a broad picture of the financial situation of wage-earner households in the over-50 population and especially, for the purposes of this contribution, a basis to test the financial constraint hypothesis of increased female older worker employment.

Specifically, the EWCS 2015 asked respondents if they were the main contributors to their household income (Fig. 7.4). At all the ages surveyed, men are most frequently the main breadwinner (the explanatory factors are well-established), remaining constant from age 35. Women show an upward trending curve with age, i.e., as women age, they become more likely to be the main household income contributor. This trend is explained by the personal life path events: return to work, changing family structures, separation, etc. Economically active women over 60 years of age are in 54.9% of cases the main contributors to their household income versus 36.6% at the age of 35. Additionally, more than one in four female employees aged 60–64 (28.6%) is in a one- person household compared to 14.9% of men at the same age. Once again, the averages conceal diverse national models and widely varying gender differences.

Fig. 7.4

Main contributor to household income, by gender and age group (% of employees, EU28, EWCS 2015). (Source: EWCS, 2015)

This at-a-glance view of the profiles of households nearing retirement shows that lengthened careers follow pathways and address constraints that are partly gender-differentiated. After the age of 50, the proportion of female main household income contributors increases as does that of one-person female households.

Women’s career paths at career wind-down reflect past fragmented careers, a return to employment, mobility and instability. Other surveys provide further insights into the specific features of career paths and employment situations in the career wind-down years. They support the hypothesis that financial constraints are a factor in increasing female employment among older workers. Rosende and Schoeni (2012) show from the Swiss example how variability in career wind-down stages and “pathways” into retirement originate in the gender division of labour that shapes life courses. “Far from the dominant perception that the second half of women’s careers equates to a greater engagement with the world of work due to a significant reduction in family responsibilities, the analysis of various indicators relating to paid work paints a very different picture of an entrenched gender paradigm” (Rosende & Schoeni 2012: 133).

The measures put forward to raise the older worker employment rate and extend the working life (raising women’s pension age to equal that of men, longer contribution periods, abolishing imputed pension contribution units for mothers. Etc.) often discriminate against women. Ostensibly egalitarian, these measures do not take into account past gender inequalities in the labour market and the first half of their careers (Bousquet, 2011). On raising women’s pension age to equal that of men, Rosende and Schoeni (2012: 135) note that “there is no ‘equality’ in forcing women – who have been responsible for almost all unpaid reproductive work and have also been heavily discriminated against throughout their working lives – to work for one or more extra years”.

Furthermore, second pillar pension schemes⁴ discriminate against those (mostly women) with discontinuous and/or part-time careers, while third pillar schemes based on the ability to save are less accessible to women because of the occupational segregation that characterizes the labour market (Rosende & Schoeni, 2012). As a result, there will be a higher probability of an early labour market exit among those with longer contribution records, i.e., with standard male career paths (uninterrupted, full-time). There is a wide gender gap between those (often women) who have to work into old age to make up for a fragmented or late-starting career and those (usually men) who can make an early exit relatively comfortably (Molinié, 2012).

Arduous Work and Gender – Differential Long-Term Effects

Exposure to arduous work in the career wind-down years or for much of working life, working conditions in the terminal years and general health are deciding factors for remaining in employment. Men and women do not have the same experiences relating to arduous work. In a working life course perspective job quality needs to be taken into account across professional trajectories where different impacts of certain working conditions on the well-being of workers can emerge in the long term.

Self-perception of health show a rising proportion of employees reporting poor health as they age, in similar proportions for men and women (Fig. 7.5). Unsurprisingly, self-perceived health is age-related. However, the findings of the EWCS 2015 show also that the perception of health is linked to occupational category: manual and low-skilled workers are more likely to report poor health than managers and professionals. Various features of the work situation – working hours that do not fit with personal life, strenuous work positions, a lack of career prospects – also play an important role for both men and women. Low social support and job insecurity also seem to have significant adverse effects, but mainly for men.

Fig. 7.5

Self-perceived health, by gender and age group (% of employees, EU 28, EWCS 2015). (Source: EWCS, 2015)

Another, slightly different, EWCS 2015 survey question concerns the perceived relation between self-perceived health and the impact of work on it: “Does your work affect your health negatively?” Men’s and women’s replies to this question plot a more or less similar curve, with more men answering “yes” (Fig. 7.6). The curves diverge slightly with age. There are of course differences between the occupational categories and also between countries (Fig. 7.7).

Fig. 7.6

Work negatively affecting health, by gender and age group (% of employees, EU27, EWCS 2015). (Source: EWCS, 2015)

Fig. 7.7

Percentage of employees aged 50 and over reporting that work negatively affects their health, by gender and country (ranked by gender gap, EWCS 2015). (Source: EWCS, 2015)

The prevalence of certain health conditions rises in frequency with age. Backache, in particular, affects more than one in two employees (men and women) from age 50 onwards. Upper body musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) affect more than one in two women from the age of 50 up to retirement, and lower body MSDs 40%.

A feeling of overall fatigue is felt by three to four out of ten employees. Overall fatigue always concerns a higher proportion of women, peaking between ages 50 and 54 (42.3%). For men, the peak is reached between ages 35 and 39 (36.5%). Women’s double workload (paid work and care work) is a key sleep disorders among women than men, increasing as they get older.

Exposure to stress is a key factor in the retirement decision. After the age of 50, one employee out of four experiences stress in his work (always or most of the time). The ability to handle stress decreases in older age. Along with stress, high emotional demands can also make work arduous. Emotional work is defined as outlined in the seminal book of Hochschild (1983) through an emotion-management perspective draws on an interactionist standpoint. At work individuals meet role demands to deal with others’ emotions, provide support, and build cooperative and positive social relationships. This “emotional work” characterizes person-facing activities (patients, students, users, etc.) or specific situations that engage the employee’s emotions (dealing with angry customers, putting on a polite face, etc.). Such “emotional work” is more common in female jobs.

Older women are not spared from physically demanding labour. This assessment joins the one made by Molinié (2012) based on the French study on health and professional life after 50. The author showed that if prolonged exposure (more than 20 years over the course of working life) to a “demanding job” was less frequent in the working life of women over 50, they had fewer possibilities to leave such a job behind before the age of 50. Thus, women remain exposed to these tough conditions until the end of their professional life.

In a special issue of the journal Travail, genre et sociétés, Teiger and Vouillot (2013) collate a number of papers showing both the progress but also the theoretical and methodological issues raised by a gendered approach to work activity and health. What these papers show is that men and women are never exposed to the same working conditions even when in identically-named occupations. In France, women in the same occupation as men suffer three times the rate of MSDs (Teiger & Vouillot, 2013: 24). Men more often experience certain more readily identifiable, measurable and “recognized” (through bonuses or early retirement opportunities, for example) working conditions – vibration, noise, heat, cold, exposure to toxins, radiation, heavy loads, night work – whereas women are most often concerned by repetitive gestures, inability to break off work, dependence on other people’s work, lack of job discretion (Caroly et al., 2013: 29). Another example described by Karen Messing relates to those employed in cleaning. Observations carried out in a hospital environment in Quebec showed that men spent twice as long cleaning floors as women and half as long cleaning toilets, a statistic with harsh consequences for women’s posture, and also entailing musculoskeletal problems (Messing, 2014). It also seems that with aging, the possibility of avoiding serious temporal constraints is not so frequent. This possibility is also less clear for the women in question than for the men (Molinié, 2014). It must also be stressed that this possibility of “protection” is accompanied by evolutions towards work situations with less rich content.

Based on an analysis of the data from France’s 2003 “health and work after 50” survey (SVP survey), Molinié (2012) offers interesting food for thought on the link between retirement and arduous work. She examines how the different forms of arduous work form part of the working environment and career paths of men and women reaching the end of gainful life, and their relation to retirement prospects. She considers three aspects of arduous work: one is retirement age in terms of harsh working conditions throughout life; a second is perceived arduousness (difficult aspects of work) that may sway the retirement decision; the third and final one is perceived arduousness of work due to poor health which may or may not be related to career history.

The activity of work is the ongoing engineering of compromises between production goals, available resources and concern to safeguard one’s health. Men and women develop safeguarding strategies (avoidance and compensation) against the causes of arduousness and the hardships of achieving or accomplishing specific tasks despite specific failings. Not everyone deploys the same strategies. They are bound up with the available discretion (see in particular Caroly et al., 2013). Working longer also means working with the health problems that appear with age and can be a hindrance to work. If women’s fragmented careers mean they have to keep working longer, they will be the most affected. The differentiated participation profiles (Levy & Bühlmann, 2016) of men and women in the field of work have differential long-term effects on health and retirement decision.

The Impact of Unpaid Work on Ageing Workers

The combined burden of paid and unpaid work impacts differently on men’s and women’s working life courses and health. The prospect of extending working lives cannot be contemplated without factoring in the short and long-term effects of this double workload. The assumed benefits of a change in the post-50 life stage – smaller household size, radical change in the family network and responsibilities – must be put into perspective. Many authors have shown that this stage is not free of family responsibilities, and also curtails second career prospects for women.

Cooking and housework remain largely the lot of women at any age. Figure 7.8 shows the responses of employees aged 50 and over who report spending time every day on these domestic duties. From age 30 and still after the age of 50, this is the case of almost 80% of women versus less than one in four men. Providing daily care for children or grandchildren is highest among the middle age group for both men and women, but with a significant gender difference. From age 50, this burden decreases but still concerns 21.7% of women and 17.4% of men. Caring for elderly parents and/or disabled relatives falls to a proportion of employees that rises with age, and more significantly among older women, concerning 8.6% of them versus 5% of men in the same age bracket.

Fig. 7.8

Employees reporting spending time every day on domestic or caring duties, by gender and age group (% of employees, EU28, EWCS 2015). (Source: EWCS, 2015)

The combined and reciprocal effects of work and working conditions and the stress of juggling work and private life undermine women’s health and, notwithstanding their still greater longevity, reduce their healthy life expectancy in the long term (Teiger & Vouillot, 2013). The link between work, family responsibilities and gender inequalities in health has been highlighted by research. Studies by Artazcoz et al. (2001) in Spain have shown the adverse effect of family demands on both married and cohabiting employed women’s but not men’s health. The finding mainly concerns low-skilled workers. The authors argue that both paid and unpaid work should be taken into account in gender approaches in health, as well as linkages between gender and social class. Work/life balance is one of various factors that will influence the decision to stay working or retire. The EWCS 2015 found a high correlation between the proportion of employees aged 50 and above who do not think they will be able to still do their current job when they reach 60 and how well their working time “fits” with their non-work commitments. Gender differential engagement with unpaid work is the product of many factors including institutional differences in social policies and entrenched gender role stereotyping. Feminist perspectives in work health indicate that, beyond the gendered nature of data about work health, there is an argument for studying remunerated and domestic work simultaneously (Avril & Marichalar, 2016). Figures 7.9, 7.10, 7.11 show both similarities between men’s and women’s situations and also wide between-country variations.

Fig. 7.9

Percentage of employees aged 50 and over who spend time every day for caring for children or grandchildren, by gender and country (ranked by gender gap, EWCS 2015). (Source: EWCS, 2015)

Fig. 7.10

Percentage of employees aged 50 and over who spend time every day for elderly or disabled relatives, by gender and country (ranked by gender gap, EWCS 2015). (Source: EWCS, 2015)

Fig. 7.11

Percentage of employees aged 50 and over who spend time every day for cooking and/or housework, by gender and country (ranked by gender gap, EWCS 2015). (Source: EWCS, 2015)

In a comparative study of the United Kingdom, Norway and the Czech Republic, Crompton et al. (2005) showed that while attitudes – i.e., views and ideas on the gendered division of domestic labour – seemed to evolve towards greater sharing, behaviours – i.e., the facts – by contrast were not changing apace. More than 30 years ago, Hochschild (1989) characterized this phenomenon as the “stalled revolution”. While a majority of women worked outside of the home and entered male-dominated fields, men had not moved into female-dominated fields or feminine roles at home. The gender revolution described by Hochschild was incomplete: without changes in men’s roles in society, women’s progress stagnated, and the revolution stalled.

Discussion

A gender perspective on older workers’ working life courses yields a contrasting picture of ageing at work. It shows how working trajectories impact on health among the over-50s, and changing workforce exit norms. The data analysis demonstrates how working conditions, characteristics of the individual, and social institutions and regulatory framework are all intertwined. Men and women follow paths during their working life. These paths are made up of choices although those choices are always constrained by the opportunities shaped by social institutions and culture. Gender must be seen as a central issue in the analysis of working conditions and policy-making to improve working conditions. It is important for social science to question data construction, and in particular the different visibility of risks and of their consequences, depending on gender. There is a blind spot when it comes to taking gender into account in studies on health problems at work – which is specifically the connection between paid and unpaid work (Avril & Marichalar, 2016). Ability and motivation to work are shaped by individual and family circumstances and preferences. They are also shaped by the ‘pull’ – economic and social – of work. The issue of working conditions cannot be divorced from the institutional conditions for organized career wind-downs, which are often specific to national contexts that are strongly influenced by European guidelines. The characteristics of women trajectories and their expectations and constraints regarding working life cannot be ignored (Méda & Vendramin, 2017). There is a need to take account of gender-differential career and non-career paths and to redress the inequalities and injustices in this area. Men and women’s working life courses and trajectories are embedded in institutionalized pathways and normative patterns. A better fit between work and the characteristics or circumstances of the individual throughout their changing life must be developed through policies and practices at work and outside of work (Eurofound, 2015a, b).