Do older people hold the answer to the worker shortage?

Analysis: for the well-being of older people, and for economic reasons, it needs to be both possible and attractive for them to work

A news bulletin on BBC Radio recently carried within it, side by side, two strongly dissonant news stories. By way of background, as you may well know, the UK economy is struggling at the moment and is suffering from a (possibly Brexit-related) shortage of workers. The UK chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced a scheme to encourage retirees to return to the workforce, to fill those work roles.

In or around the same time, the Chartered Management Institute had announced the results of a survey of over 1000 employers, reporting that only 42% were positively disposed to employing people aged 50-64, with this figure dropping to a meagre 18% for people over 65. So the Confederation for British Industry clamours for a solution to the labour shortage, the government proposes a different solution, and the employers say "no thanks".

Not unlike a famished person refusing a meal as it's not their favourite dish. What's going on? Considering government efforts here to extend the retirement age, this also has clear local implications. If Irish workers are compelled to retire later, how difficult will it be for them to find work?

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From RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Claire Byrne, IMF warns UK economy will shrink in 2023

None of this is very surprising if we know the research literature regarding attitudes towards older people, and older workers in particular – and in truth little seems to have changed in some time in this regard.

Gretchen Petery and James W. Grosch of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote a 2022 commentary on the research in the area. Citing the widely-accepted Depreciation Model, which suggests that perceived value of workers is dependent on their age, they suggest that the research shows that younger and older workers are seen as less productive and valuable while peak value is to be obtained from workers in mid-career. So middle-aged workers, on this basis, would be most likely to be employed.

Read more: How can Ireland value, protect and resource an older workforce?

However, this is where the trajectory of perceived development comes into play – while the mid-career people are perceived as being at their peak, their younger peers are seen as increasing in value, while the older workers are seen as past their peak and declining. These stereotypes applying, it would not be surprising that older workers would be less likely to be offered jobs.

And these observations match closely the findings of Petery and her colleagues from Curtin University in Australia and University of Western Australia, that commonly-held stereotypes of older workers (e.g. getting flustered by fast-paced work, relying on out-dated knowledge/methods) were also considered to predispose to poor work performance – and so were likely to make older workers less attractive to employers. A particularly striking feature of this research was that older workers were perceived as far more likely to be resistant to change, and that this was seen as very much linked to poor performance.

Read more: How to deal with ageism and bullying in the workplace

Is the stereotype of resistance to change in older workers accurate? Not according to survey research in Switzerland, which found that older workers were more open to change, albeit the effect here was small. Theoretically, this finding can be explained with reference to the greater resources and experience older workers have acquired over time, allowing them to adapt. If this is the case, then arguably a major reason for this reluctance to hire older people may be based on a false premise.

And what of the question of work performance? A 2008 meta-analysis of the research in the field examined the relationship of age to ten different domains of performance at work, and they found that age was largely unrelated to core performance, creativity and performance in training; furthermore, their analysis showed that older workers were more likely to engage in positive workplace behaviours, less likely to engage in counter-productive behaviours such as aggression, and they were found to be safer.

So on the whole, based on these findings, older workers would appear to be no less able than their younger peers, and very possibly better equipped. Where does this leave us?

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From RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime, Irish Independent's Jon Ihle on decision to keep the qualifying age for state pension at 66

Nationally and globally we are experiencing almost unprecedented (certainly in non-covid, non-wartime) demographic changes. In Ireland, the CSO predicts that between 2016 and 2051 the proportions of the population which is of working age (defined as 15-64) will fall from 65.5% to between 57.6% and 59.3%, while that of older adults (65+) will climb from 13.3% to between 23.9% and 27.4%. The relative increase in the very old age category (80+) will be considerably sharper. All told, the dependency ratio (the proportion of non-workers to those of working age) will rise from 52.7% to between 66.9% and 75.2% in that 35-year period.

In the absence of a sharp increase in productivity or change in the way things are run in our societies, this has clear implications for living standards and for economic performance – hence the urgency in government, the commentary on the "pensions time bomb", and the push here, in the UK and elsewhere to get older people back into (or keep them in) the labour force.

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From RTÉ News, Department of Finance study finds Ireland's ageing population could push public finances onto unsustainable path

In addition, from a psychological and lifespan perspective, as people are living longer, number of years of active healthy life is also increasing; thus, while not everyone wants to or is able to work into their late 60s or beyond, for others retirement is deeply unattractive, their work role is an important part of their identity, and they want to continue in that role.

So for the well-being of older people, and for cold economic reasons, it needs to be both possible and attractive for older people to work. And it's not enough for governments to issue a diktat that "thou shalt work" - a programme is needed to provide older people with the choice, to reduce resistance to employing older people, and to find ways of adjusting the world of work to make it more attractive and more suited to older workers. All of which inevitably leads us to the topic of ageism - but look at the time, don't get me started!

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ