Hardback
Retiring Women
Work and Post-work Transitions
9781783477159 Edward Elgar Publishing
With current policy concerns about shortfalls of labour supply and effects on the social welfare system due to population ageing, there is a need to understand the factors that shape women’s choices about if, when and how to retire. Recent trends indicating the increased workforce participation of women demand new policy responses to the end of careers and retirement transitions to sustain acceptable levels of participation and productivity. This book is innovative in that it will examine constellations of factors that disadvantage or advantage women’s career and retirement trajectories against a backdrop of public policy efforts to extend working lives.
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Critical Acclaim
Contents
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This book considers what work and retirement mean for older women, how each is experienced, and how working fits with other facets of their lives. The authors draw on data collected from women themselves, employers, industry stakeholders and older workers’ advocates, to explore older women’s experiences of work and retirement against a backdrop of current policy efforts to extend working lives in response to ageing societies.
Contrary to common representations of the situation of older workers, the data reveal how workplaces can be seen as relatively benign, and retirement viewed positively. It contributes to academic debate regarding identity, purpose and meaning in later life, identifying challenges for work-focused public policy.
Students and scholars of human resource management, sociology, gerontology and social policy will appreciate the extension of understanding older women’s life course trajectories that the book offers. Public policy-makers will benefit from the different representations of older women in the book, and the identification of where they would benefit from policy changes.
Contrary to common representations of the situation of older workers, the data reveal how workplaces can be seen as relatively benign, and retirement viewed positively. It contributes to academic debate regarding identity, purpose and meaning in later life, identifying challenges for work-focused public policy.
Students and scholars of human resource management, sociology, gerontology and social policy will appreciate the extension of understanding older women’s life course trajectories that the book offers. Public policy-makers will benefit from the different representations of older women in the book, and the identification of where they would benefit from policy changes.
Critical Acclaim
‘This book is among the first to solely focus on the work and retirement of older women. Much needed research in a field that is still dominated by male perspectives, whereas the older workforce consists of increasing shares of women.’
– Kène Henkens, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
– Kène Henkens, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Contents
Contents: 1. Older women, public policy and work 2. Public policy, ageing and work, and longer working lives 3. Older women workers in Australia: the study 4. Older women’s experiences of working 5. Older women in labour market transitions: leaving, looking for and moving into work 6. Older women and the transition to retirement 7. After work? Understanding older women’s portfolio life transitions 8. Customizing women’s portfolio work and ‘retirement’ careers 9. Teachers as older women workers: stakeholder comments 10. Conclusion: public policy leadership and change for women’s work and retirement References Index
