New research has found that ill-health and injury among older workers were likely to lead to earlier lifetime shifts, not only from full-time work to retirement, but also to part-time work or self-employment.
Researchers at the Curtin University said that as a result, public policies should be developed to both specifically target older workers recently hit by unexpected health changes and make part-time and self-employment more flexible to encourage people to work longer.
Co-author of the paper produced from the project, Mark Harris said that as retirement age increased across the world, understanding different pathways for transitioning from full-time employment was crucial to the design of Government policies.
“Our research provides robust evidence around the role of health in influencing employment and retirement decisions and so may help Governments to devise more targeted incentives for older workers to remain active in the labour market,” Professor Harris said.
“Our analysis was motivated by both the scarcity of knowledge and mixed findings around the relationship between ill-health and different paths into inactivity for workers in the latter stages of their work lives.”
Professor Harris, from Curtin’s School of Economics, Finance and Property, said the research also highlighted the need for older Australians to be very aware of health and health conditions, especially as these were likely to affect their transitions from employment into eventual retirement.
The paper, Ageing Workforces, Ill-health and Multi-state Labour Market Transitions, can be accessed at this PS News link.
