Research project Extending working lives
Photo: Greta Hoffman från Pexels
This project is now closed. Read more about the results under the More about this project heading.
Extended working lives and active aging are central issues in most countries today, including Sweden, as a consequence of population ageing, increasing labor shortages in key sectors and changes in the pension systems. Nothwithstanding an increasing body of research on retirement, knowledge about the relative importance of various job and organizational factors for individuals' retirement decisions is still limited.
The project’s central questions are the following:
- How do older employees feel about their work?
- What thoughts do older employees have about aging and retirement?
- What drives people to want to extend their working lives?
- Which employees have a higher risk of a premature exit from working life?
- How do retirees experience work after retirement?
A special focus is placed on the role of psychosocial work environment, career-related and organizational factors to individuals’ retirement preferences, planning and decisions. The project will also examine employers’ (i.e., HR managers and first-line managers) attitudes and strategies for an increasingly older workforce within welfare.
The project's full title is: Extending working lives: Factors involved in older workers’ willingness and possibility to stay in the workforce and employers’ attitudes towards older people’s labor market participation.
Artiklar
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Sverke, M., & Bernhard-Oettel, C. (submitted). Older workers’ profiles on job demands, job resources, and personal resources and their associations with retirement preferences and intentions.
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Knudsen, K., Persson, L., Lindfors, P., & Sverke, M. (submitted). Meaning of working for older nurses and nursing assistants in Sweden: A qualitative study.
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Knudsen, K., Sverke, M., & Lindfors, P. (submitted). To work after retirement: A qualitative study among mental health nursing assistants.
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Stengård, J., Leineweber, C., & Bernhard-Oettel, C. (in press). Are trajectories of preferred retirement ages associated with health, work ability and effort-reward imbalance at work? Findings from a six-year Swedish longitudinal study. Accepted for publication in Work, Aging and Retirement. doi: 10.1093/workar/waad006
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Lindfors, P., & Knudsen, K. (2022). Sustainable working life in intensive care: A qualitative study of older nurses. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19, 6130. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19106130
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Persson, L., Sverke, M., & Lindfors, P. (2022). Approaching retirement in the elderly care: A qualitative study of nursing assistants’ experiences of work and late-career planning. Journal of Aging Studies, 60, March 2022, 100994. doi: 10.1016 /j.jaging.2021.100994
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Bernhard-Oettel, C., Sverke, M., & Westerlund, H. (2021). Health- and age-related workplace factors as predictors of preferred, expected, and actual retirement timing: Findings from a Swedish cohort study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18, 2746. doi: 10.3390/ ijerph18052746.
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Sverke, M., & Coimbra, J. C. (2020). Engagement in meaningful activities during unemployment and subjective well-being. Revista E-PSI, 9(3), 4–34.
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Sverke, M., Coimbra, J. C., & De Witte, H. (2018). Intentions to participate in training among older unemployed people: A serial mediator model. Journal of Career Development, 45, 268–284. doi: 10.1177/0894845316687669
Konferensbidrag
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Sverke, M., & Bernhard-Oettel, C. (2022). Older workers’ profiles on job demands, job resources, and personal resources and their associations with late-career preferences. In K. Teoh, F. Frost, J. Singh, M. Charalampous, & L. M. Muñoz (Eds.), Book of Proceedings 15th Conference of the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology: Supporting Knowledge Comparison to Promote Good Practice in Occupational Health Psychology (p. 362). Nottingham: European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology.
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Persson, L., Sverke, M., & Lindfors, P. (2019). Approaching retirement in the elderly care sector: A qualitative study of older workers’ perceptions of work and late career planning. In Abstract Book of the 19th European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology Congress: Working for the greater good – Inspiring people, designing jobs and leading organizations for a more inclusive society (p. 1531).
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Knudsen, K., Lindfors, P., & Sverke, M. (2019). I work, therefore I am: The meaning of work and retirement for bridge employees in the Swedish healthcare sector. In Abstract Book of the 19th European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology Congress: Working for the greater good - Inspiring people, designing jobs and leading organizations for a more inclusive society (pp. 593-594).
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Stengård, J., Leineweber, C., & Bernhard-Oettel, C. (2019). Are trajectories of preferred- and expected retirement ages associated with health and effort-reward imbalance at work? Findings from a six-year Swedish longitudinal study. In Abstract Book of the 19th European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology Congress: Working for the greater good - Inspiring people, designing jobs and leading organizations for a more inclusive society (p. 1450).
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Sverke, M., & Coimbra, J. L. (2018). Too old for work? Mediated associations between perceived age discrimination and job search among older unemployed people. In K. Teoh, N. Saade, V. Dediu, J. Hassard & L. Torres (Eds.), Book of Proceedings 13th Conference of the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology: Adapting to rapid changes in today's workplace (p. 75). Nottingham: European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology.
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Knudsen, K., Lindfors, P., & Sverke, M. (2018). Experiences of working after retirement: A qualitative study in the Swedish health care sector. In K. Teoh, N. Saade, V. Dediu, J. Hassard & L. Torres (Eds.), Book of Proceedings 13th Conference of the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology: Adapting to rapid changes in today's workplace(pp. 267-268). Nottingham: European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology.
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Sverke, M., & Coimbra, J. L. (2017). Engagement in meaningful activities during unemployment and subjective well-being: A mediational model. In Abstract Book of the 18th European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology Congress: Enabling Change through Work and Organizational Psychology (p. 709).
Sousa-Ribeiro, M., Bernhard-Oettel, C., Sverke, M., & Westerlund, H. (2017). What predicts older workers’ retirement preferences and actual retirement age? Findings from a Swedish cohort study. In Abstract Book of the 18th European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology Congress: Enabling Change through Work and Organizational Psychology (p. 1360).
Masteruppsatser
Eriksson, R.A.G. (2022). Möjligheter och utmaningar med ett förlängt arbetsliv inom vård och omsorgssektorn: En kvalitativ studie utifrån personalchefers perspektiv. Stockholms universitet, Psykologiska institutionen.
Gustafsson, N. (2022). An exploration into how perceived availability of Human Resources Management practices is associated with older employees’ preferred age to exit from the workforce. Stockholms universitet, Psykologiska institutionen.
Knudsen, K. (2017). Working after retirement: A qualitative study of extended working life in the Swedish health care sector. Stockholms universitet, Psykologiska institutionen.
Persson, L. (2018). Approaching Retirement: A qualitative study of older workers’ perceptions of work, aging and future retirement in the Swedish elderly care sector. Stockholms universitet, Psykologiska institutionen.
“Extended working lives” is a central topic in most countries, as a consequence of population ageing and increasing labor shortages. The overall purpose of this project was to contribute to the understanding of individuals' retirement decision making and employers' practices towards extended working lives. A special focus was placed on the role of psychosocial work environment, career-related and organizational factors for individuals’ retirement preferences, planning and decisions.
The project used various datasets: (1) the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH) (pre-existing data), (2) in-depth interviews with older nursing staff in eldercare and healthcare, (3) in-depth interviews with HR and first-line managers in eldercare, and (4) panel data collected with an on-line questionnaire at two time points, among a large sample of workers aged 56–65 years. A total of nine articles and four master theses have been produced within the project. Some of the data collected will be used in future studies.
In brief, quantitative findings show a general preference for early retirement, and that a significant proportion of individuals preferred to retire earlier than they expected to and actually did. Longitudinal analyses show that, while preferences to retire around the age of 65 and later remained relatively stable over six years, those who preferred retiring considerably earlier than 65, tended to adjust their preferences to a certain extent over time, however well below the age of 65. Overall, better health and work ability, lower effort-reward imbalance at work, an age-friendly work environment and feeling positive regarding the future at work, contributed to preferring, expecting and actually retiring at later ages. Furthermore, higher levels of emotional exhaustion, perceiving age-related inequalities at the workplace and perceiving aging as a future obstacle at work, contributed to preferring to retire earlier than one expected to. Findings also show that older workers’ work engagement and the willingness to prolong their working lives was encouraged by favorable psychosocial working conditions (e.g., low job demands and high job resources) combined with high levels of personal resources.
The qualitative studies add fine-grained analyses and insights regarding how eldercare nursing assistants, intensive care nurses and retired psychiatric ward nursing assistants involved in post-retirement work made sense of their experiences of work, as well as their late-career decisions when approaching retirement. The flexibility of the Swedish pension system and the openness of the organization to employ retired people were considered important to post-retirement work. Hourly-paid work was considered attractive, as it allowed for flexibility in working time and more control over the tasks to be performed, and facilitated a smoother transition to life as a retiree. Meaningful work was an important dimension in the positive experience of working, with the most prominent aspect being a sense of purpose and contribution to a larger good. Retirement planning was strongly influenced by considerations regarding one’s health, work ability, psychosocial work environment, and organizational practices that facilitated aging-in-workplace. A study with HR- and first-line managers in eldercare found however that, notwithstanding older employees being considered a valuable resource, the implementation of individual-tailored and age-specific management practices was perceived as challenging.
The project’s findings suggest that increasing statutory retirement ages and economic benefits for late retirement are far from enough in facilitating and encouraging older workers to postpone the full-exit from the workforce. Rather, the findings show the importance of adequate working conditions, an age-friendly workplace and human resources practices that enable a healthy and sustainable working life throughout the life-span.