Page 40 - increasing-the-value-of-age-guidance-in-employers-age-management-strategies

Increasing the value of age: guidance in employers’ age management strategies

According to the Eurostat adult education survey of, 2011, only 26% of older
employees had taken part in formal or non-formal education and training during
the past 12 months, in contrast with 41% when all employees are considered.
There seems a strong relationship with educational attainment: as they get
older, employees with previous vocational education tend to participate more in
adult education than the ones without any previous record of vocational training.
Firms may also give lower priority to education and training directed at older
employees, due to expected lower economic return associated with a shorter
remaining active working life relative to their younger colleagues.
The results of the adult education survey highlight that health or age reasons
are the main justification for non-enrolment among the age group of 55 to 64, with
18.7% giving this reason for non-participation.

Figure 5. Reasons for non-participation in learning

Source: Based on Eurostat, AES, 2011.

The second important reason for non-participation is family responsibilities,
but this is more relevant for younger employees (probably due to the care of
children). Older people see significantly fewer obstacles to participation in training
than the young, once heath or age reasons are ruled out of the analysis.
The relative importance of each reason varies considerably from country to
country. For example, the category ’health or age’ varies from 7.8% in Germany
to 63.9% in Hungary. It was not possible to identify any geographical pattern in
this variation.
The cost argument also varies greatly, from 6.5% in Belgium to 59.6% in
Croatia. The justification of cost is generally more important in the eastern part of
Europe than in the western and northern parts, with high relevance in Bulgaria
(36.8%), Estonia (33.4%), Poland (27.1%), Romania (24.4%) and Slovakia
(22.9%) and low relevance in Cyprus (2.4%), the UK (4.1%), Norway (4.3%) and

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