Publications > Press Articles 2002

Other countries ahead of Australia on action for older workers

From: Fifty-Plus News, December 2002, p4
By: Veronica Sheen, Deputy Director, Council on the Ageing , (COTA) Australia

Mature age employment issues are becoming more and more important around the world, as well as in Australia. At COTA I have been working on these issues for several years. My participation in 2000 at an international conference in Washington on the Aging of the Global Workforce sparked my interest in activities in other countries.

A Churchill Fellowship in August-September enabled me to continue this work and study overseas. I investigated activities in relation to older workers and ageing workforce issues in the United States, England and mainland Europe.

There is considerable concern in the USA and Europe about future labour supply given population and workforce ageing. This is aggravated by built-in incentives in the retirement incomes systems of many countries for people to retire at a relatively young age. Individuals are not encouraged to continue working or take up phased retirement plans beyond a fixed age. This means a loss to business of many skilled and experienced people.

Older workers' issues are also a focus of activity in seniors organisations around the world, including AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) and National Council on the Aging in the United States; Age Concern and Help the Aged in England; and the new peak body in Brussels, AGE. Such organisations are not only engaged in policy and research work, but are also active in providing or initiating services and programs for older workers.

There is a great deal of media interest in ageing workforce and older workers issues in United States due to the recent poor performance of the share market. There was a continuous stream of stories in the newspapers about mature age people who had to delay retirement or return to were due to the fall in the value of savings in their retirement accounts have fallen. Many people need to work longer in order to be able to afford retirement.

There is also great concern about the low level of savings particularly and the ballooning amount of consumer debt amongst baby boomers. This will also influence the retirement plans of many Americans.

In terms of combating age discrimination, I was impressed by the US Age Discrimination in Employment legislation which has been in existence for over thirty years. The Federal Government in Australia is planning legislation to stop age discrimination and could learn much from the case law that has grown from the US legislation.

AARP is actively involved in court action on age discrimination mainly on a class action basis. I was intrigued by the fact that a seniors organisation was taking on major cases in age discrimination and helping to reform business culture to be more age friendly.

A number of AARP's recent cases involve companies who use employee rating systems to target older workers for retrenchment.

The National Older Workers Career Center in Washington places older workers in specific programs at the Environmental Protection Agency which has an allocation of 10 per cent of additional staff positions for people aged 55 and over.

Australia could greatly benefit from a similar national system of employment placement services that can help older workers in a focussed way to find employment using mature age people on the staff.

In the UK, a Pre-Retirement Association aims to help people with mid life and mid career transitions. It trains people in the area of pre-retirement planning at certificate, diploma or masters degree level. It also offers in house courses for companies with mature workers.

The UK Third Age Employment Network and the US National Association of Older Workers Employment Services bring together specialised older workers services to share ideas about best practice, provide training and undertake research and advocacy activities on behalf of older workers.

COTA's recent work in Australia with older workers shows there is an urgent need for these sorts of services here.

The European Commission is very concerned at the low levels of employment participation of people 55 and over in a number of European Union member countries. It is encouraging member countries to achieve a participation rate of 50 per cent for people aged 55-64 by 2010.

Australia's employment rate for people aged 55-64 is only around 43 per cent so we could do well to follow the European example of working towards an improvement in our rates of employment for people in this age group.

The Minister for Ageing, Kevin Andrews made this a policy issue at the recent Maturity Matters Congress in Perth. However, Australia has a lot of catching up to do in terms of practical strategies to improve opportunities for older workers. Seniors organisations like COTA-National Seniors Partnership will play a major role in supporting such initiatives in the future.