Extending people’s working lives has become an established policy in many parts of Europe as governments seek to reduce the cost of state pensions in the context of an aging population. But there are concerns about the health of older workers and what poor health among workers might mean for sickness absence rates and social security costs. New research looking at working longer and absence rates due to illness suggests that it may be possible to raise the retirement age without disproportionately increasing rates of absence due to illness and Social Security costs, but the researchers also raise concerns about widening health and social inequalities. The paper’s authors, Kristin Varants and Kristina Alexandersson of the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and Jenny Head of University College London, summarize their findings.
It is generally believed that more people who stay in paid work will put less stress on public pension systems, as there will be more people paying in the system, and fewer people dependent on it, even if some people withdraw old age pensions at the same time in which they did paid work.
The flip side of this thinking is that there can be a large group of people, especially those with lower incomes and lower educational levels, who may simply not be healthy enough to justify those increases in retirement age. In other words, raising the retirement age could lead to higher costs for the sickness insurance system.
In our paper, the first to look at the links between paid work and sick absence after age 65, we used Swedish data to look at the 12-year lives of 218,000 workers who turned 65 in 2000, 2005, or 2010.
In line with his policies of encouraging people to work longer, we can see that the proportion of each of his cohorts in gainful employment after 65 has actually increased over time. In fact, between 2000 and 2010, the number of gainfully employed people over the age of 65 doubled from about 50,000 to 100,000. However, in the years of study there were no changes made regarding the change of pension years. The age of 65 was the prevailing age for old-age pension, which could be taken at 61.
absence of disease
When we looked at sick absence, the proportion of workers ages 66 to 71 with an illness absence of more than 14 days increased only marginally between the 2000 and 2010 cohorts. This indicates a healthy potential, and justification for further increases in retirement age government and reassure those worried about the social and economic strikes to prolong the working life.
However, closer scrutiny of the data raised some concerns about who was more likely to work after age 65 and the implications of that — in other words, some people from certain backgrounds may benefit more than others from being able to work longer and stay healthy. reinforce inequality?
Being a man, having a higher education, born in Sweden, living in a big city, and having no previous absence due to illness or (especially) a part-time disability pension, was associated with gainful employment after the age of 65.
Among those in gainful employment after the age of 65, who were born in the “Nordic countries outside Sweden” for women, and in the “EU-27 outside the Nordic countries” or the “rest of the world” for men, and live in the city, who have a previous pathological absence There is no previous disability pension linked to sick absence.
Indeed, many of those who had previously been absent from work due to illness and/or partial disability pensions continued to be in gainful employment. Those and others, of course, had complaints that sometimes led to the inability to work and the need to miss work due to illness – however, to a much lesser extent than at the age of 60-64.
Possible reasons for their low sick absence, particularly in connection with the dramatic increase in the proportions of persons in gainful employment, warrant further investigation. Better overall health for older adults may be one of those aspects, however, work adjustments related to work hours, work times, and work tasks may be another.
Policymakers need to consider how best they can support people with various health conditions to remain in paid employment after age 65 if health and income inequalities do not become more widely entrenched as the nation’s retirement age rises in the future. Justice and balance are essential!
Trends in the association between sick absenteeism before age 65 and gainful employment after age 65: a prospective study of three total populations It is research by Christine Farrants, Jenny Head, and Christina Alexanderson, and was published in the Journal of Aging and Social Policy.
Related
