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Working and ageing
266 Guidance and counselling for mature learners

Figure 14.1. Transitions after 50

Personal Employment Income Family Care Leisure
transitions transitions transitions transitions transitions transitions

• midlife • career • pensions • household • expanding/ • expanding/
change manage- • benefits changes changing changing
ment • salary / • children care tasks leisure
• part-time wage leaving activities
work home
• self-employ- • divorce
ment • living alone
• retirement

Source: Phillipson, 2002.

From the organisational perspective, during a period of economic downturn,
many organisations adopt early voluntary retirement/redundancy programmes,
placing the older workforce, in particular, at risk of exiting the labour market. In
addition, talent management programmes tend to be geared towards younger
staff, with few opportunities to learn and develop available to older workers. It
is important to note, however, that the extent to which the challenge of the
ageing workforce is managed across the public, private and voluntary sectors
varies significantly. One of the key findings of Loretto and White (2006), in their
study of 40 employers across Scotland from both the public and private
sectors, was the acknowledgement by employers that early redundancy
programmes ʻalmost wholly targeted older workersʼ (Loretto and White, 2006,
p. 322). They also suggest that older workers are more likely to remain in
employment in smaller, private companies as there is often no financial
incentive for the employee to retire early. This is an important point to consider
when comparing workers across sectors and at different skill levels.
While popular conception among many authors (Loretto and White, 2006;
Naegele and Walker, 2006; McNair et al., 2007) suggests that employers view
older workers positively and recognise several desirable qualities such as
reliability, experience and knowledge, the reality is that older workers are
increasingly being deemed ʻdisposableʼ by many organisations. Scotlandʼs
largest local authority has recently adopted a strategy to cut 4 000 jobs held