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Thursday, April 11, 2013

Study: Working in Mixed-Aged Groups More Likely To Prolong Working Life of Older Workers

The Centre for European Economic Research in Mannheim (ZEW) has released research results that find that of the various measures more and more companies rely on in order to retain older employees—appropriately equipped workplaces, reduced working hours and performance requirements, mixed-age work teams, general training, specific training as well as part-time work for older employees—people nearing retirement age are more likely to continue working if they feel valued and if they work with younger people. Part-time work, on the contrary, is apparently even reducing the employment period of older staff, and all the other measures looked at have no influence at all on older employees' decisions to stay with their company.

In "Specific Measures for Older Employees and Late Career Employment" (ZEW Discussion Paper No. 12-059), authored by Bernhard Boockmann, Jan Fries and Christian Göbel, the ZEW staff used longitudinal data provided by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) on older employees aged between 40 and 65 from 2002, observing 1,063 West German companies with at least five older employees are being observed. Approximately, 50% of the companies offered at least one measure for older employees: 36% offered part-time work for older employees (allowing them contract extensions on reduced working hours), 18% offered mixed-age work teams where older employees could contribute their experience and younger employees their recent professional knowledge, 17% general training, 5% reduced performance requirements, 4% appropriately equipped workplaces (considering e.g. reduced vision or hearing impairment), and 3% tailor-made training for older employees.

Source: Centre for European Economic Research in Mannheim Press Release (March 13, 2013)

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