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CHAPTER 10
Career development in later working life: implications for career guidance with older workers 191

the normative circumstantial constraints associated with a life stage dominated
for many by providing for and nurturing a family. Traditionally financial
provision has been predominantly a male concern, while nurturance fell more
to women, although in economically advanced societies roles have become
blurred in recent decades. Limitation, by contrast, may arise from within the
individual, and became an apparent concern for respondents to the Barham
(2008) study, even when health issues and lower energy levels were not
reported as a constraining factor.
The possible dimensions of future time perspective, and how time
perception relates to other social opportunities and constraints, need further
research. Cate and John (2007) have however drawn attention to two aspects
of concern for careers advisers working with clients of any age: their clientsʼ
awareness and perception of opportunities available to them, and their self-
perception of limitations with regard to accessing opportunities. Both
dimensions are recognisable in the interviews conducted in our study.
Janet, a former teacher who left because of unsatisfactory work conditions,
and then coped with a period of caring, bereavement and personal ill-health,
comments at age 55 that ʻtime is going onʼ. Although financially secure through
her husband, she explores tentative ideas for work activities, wanting to find a
ʻreal sense of satisfaction, something fulfilling, achievementʼ, and emphasises
that this is ʻfrom inside, more for myself than othersʼ (Barham, 2008, p. 16).
Possible dimensions of future time perspective are complexly intertwined
in the case of Doreen, aged 49, who quickly obtained a new job after
redundancy. She left the job (better paid than her previous one) after a week
because there was very little to do. Her comments to the researcher include
ʻI canʼt hang about like thatʼ and ʻIʼve got better things to do at homeʼ. Explicit
here is an awareness that time is a valuable commodity, and not one to be
traded lightly, even for good pay. Behind the precipitate departure from the
new job, one could hypothesise an assumption that other opportunities exist,
but that was not articulated within the space of the research interview.
Limitations are also expressed in terms of specific health issues, often
minor, but that would be aggravated by physical or mental stress, and an
acceptance of tiring more easily than in younger days. It was particularly
notable among research respondents that older people who had taken a break
from full-time work doubted their capacity to return to a full-time job, whereas
this was not noted as a limitation by those of a similar age with a continuous
full-time work history. This suggests that neither social circumstance alone nor
time perspective alone offers sufficient explanation: study of the interaction
between factors may reveal the complexity as experienced by individuals.