Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:44:09.406Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rethinking Risk and Ageing: Extending Working Lives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

Jason L. Powell  and
Paul Taylor
Jason L. Powell
Affiliation:
The Department of Social and Political Science, University of Chester, UK E-mail: [email protected]
Paul Taylor
Affiliation:
The Department of Social and Political Science, University of Chester, UK E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper critically examines the development of recent policy and theoretical issues concerning the ‘extension of working lives’ for older people in the United Kingdom. It grounds its analysis in ideas from the ‘risk society’ thesis (Beck, 1992) to explore how the matrix of population ageing, job and pension changes impinge on the shifting emphasis on increasing the retirement age, coupled with individualising pensions from state provision to a focus on self-responsibility via private provision. This neo-liberal re-positioning of extending work and pension policy has implications for the management of risk for older people in the UK. The paper explores the impact of population ageing on government ideas associated with social policy relating to extending working lives. It concludes with an assessment on the lessons policy makers and social policy analysts can learn from such shifts and the impact on the social construction of age.

Keywords

ageingemploymentriskpensions and social policy
Type
Themed Section on Policy Responses to Ageing and the Extension of Working Lives
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , October 2016 , pp. 637 - 645
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beck, U. (1992) Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Beck, U. (2000) World Risk Society, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Biggs, S. (1999) The Mature Imagination, Maidenhead: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Biggs, S. and Powell, J.L. (2001) ‘A Foucauldian analysis of old age and the power of social welfare’, Journal of Aging and Social Policy, 12, 2, 93–111.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crawford, R. and Tetlow, G. (2010) ‘Employment, retirement and pensions’, in Banks, J., Lessof, C., Nazroo, J., Rogers, N., Stafford, M. and Steptoe, A. (eds.), Financial Circumstances, Health and Well-Being of the Older Population in England: The 2008 English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, Wave 4, http://www.ifs.org.uk/ELSA/publicationDetails/id/5315.Google Scholar
Daly, M. and Scheiwe, K. (2010) ‘Individualisation and personal obligations: social policy, family policy, and law reform in Germany and the UK’, International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, 24, 2, 177–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Vroom, B. (2004) ‘The shift from early to late exit; changing institutional conditions and individual preferences: the case of the Netherlands’, in Maltby, T., de Vroom, B., Mirabile, M. L. and Overbye, E. (eds.), Ageing and the Transition to Retirement, Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) (2002) Simplicity, Security and Choice: Working and Saving for Retirement, Department for Work and Pensions Green Paper, Cm. 5677, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Estes, C. (1979) The Ageing Enterprise: A Critical Examination of Social Policies and Services for the Aged, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Foster, K. (2013) ‘Generation and discourse in working life stories’, British Journal of Sociology, 64, 2, 195–215.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish, London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Gilleard, C. and Higgs, P. (2000) Cultures of Ageing: Self, Citizen and the Body. London: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Gruber, J. and Wise, D. A. (2007) Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Fiscal Implications of Reform, Chicago, IL: National Bureau of Economic Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korpi, W. and Palme, J. (1998) ‘The paradox of redistribution and strategies of equality: welfare state institutions, inequality and poverty in the Western countries’, American Sociological Review, 63, 5, 661–87.Google Scholar
Leeson, G. W. (2011) ‘Prepared or not, Latin America faces the challenge of aging’, Current History, 110, 75–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mabbett, D. (2012) ‘The ghost in the machine: pension risks and regulatory responses in the United States and the United Kingdom’, Politics and Society, 40, 1, 104–26.Google Scholar
McNair, S. (2006) ‘How different is the older labour market? Attitudes to work and retirement among older people in Britain’, Social Policy and Society, 5, 4, 485–94.Google Scholar
Office of Fair Trading (1997) Report of the Director General's Inquiry into Pensions, July 1997, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Pensions Commission (2004) Pensions: Challenges and Choices, First Report of the Pensions Commission, London: Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Phillipson, C. (1998) Reconstructing Old Age, London: Sage.Google Scholar
Phillipson, C. (2013) Ageing, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Phillipson, C. and Smith, A. (2005) Extending Working Life: A Review of the Research Literature, Research Report No. 299, London: Department for Work and Pensions.Google Scholar
Powell, J. L. (2014) Education, Employment and Pensions, New York: NY: Nova Science Google Scholar
Powell, J. L. and Biggs, S. (2000) ‘Managing old age: the disciplinary web of power, surveillance and normalisation’, Journal of Aging and Identity, 5, 3–13.Google Scholar
Powell, J. L. and Khan, H. (2013) ‘Ageing and globalization: a global analysis’, Journal of Globalization Studies, 4, 1, 150–9.Google Scholar
Taylor, P. (2002) New Policies for Older Workers, Bristol: The Policy Press and York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.Google Scholar
Tillsley, C., Taylor, P., Beausoleili, J. and Wilson, R. (2000) Factors Affecting Retirement, Research Report commissioned by the Department for Education and Employment, London: DfEE Google Scholar
Vickerstaff, S. (2010) ‘Older workers: the “unavoidable obligation” of extending our working lives?’, Sociology Compass, 4, 10, 869–79.Google Scholar
Walker, A. and Aspalter, C. (eds.) (2008) Securing the Future for Old Age in Europe, Hong Kong: Casa Verde.Google Scholar
Zinn, J. O. (2008) ‘A comparison of sociological theorizing on risk and uncertainty’, in Zinn, J. O. (ed.), Social Theories of Risk and Uncertainty, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 168–210.Google Scholar