Dirk Hofäcker

Globalization, Uncertainty and Late Careers in Society

Introduction 1. Late Careers and Retirement in Times of Accelerating Social Change: An Introduction 2. Late Careers and Retirement in International Comparison 3. Public Attitudes to Retirement in Times of Accelerating Social Change 4. Late Careers and Retirement in Germany 5. Late Careers and Retirement in the Netherlands 6. Late Careers and Retirement in Sweden 7. Late Careers and Retirement in Denmark 8. Late Careers and Retirement in Norway 9. Late Careers and Retirement in Hungary 10. Late Careers and Retirement in Estonia 11. Late Careers and Retirement in the Czech Republic 12. Late Careers and Retirement in Poland 13. Late Careers and Retirement in Slovenia 14. Late Careers and Retirement in Great Britain 15. Late Careers and Retirement in Canada 16. Late Careers and Retirement in the United States 17. Late Careers and Retirement in Italy 18. Late Careers and Retirement in Spain 19. Late Careers and Retirement in Times of Accelerating Social Change: Conclusions

GlobalIndex A Sociological Approach to Globalization Measurement

This article suggests a multidimensional globalization measure, encompassing economic, (socio)technological, cultural and political dimensions of global change. This measure builds on previous work...This article suggests a multidimensional globalization measure, encompassing economic, (socio)technological, cultural and political dimensions of global change. This measure builds on previous work by Dreher, Lockwood and Redoano, the OECD and Kearney, but extends it by additional dimensions and indicators that represent central facets of a genuine sociological concept of globalization. The article first describes in detail the multidimensional nature of the globalization process and then develops an overall sociological index of globalization, which the authors call GlobalIndex. This index covers the development of globalization in 97 different countries from 1970 to 2002. Using the GlobalIndex, the authors describe the development of globalization on a worldwide scale as well as for different country contexts. Finally, they include the GlobalIndex as an explanatory variable in two micro-level longitudinal analyses of labour market transitions during the early career period in Germany and the UK.

Older Workers in a Globalizing World

It is a complication of gerontology that while the ageing of the population is well known, trends in retirement are uneven and often unpredictable. In this comparison of retirement across Western developed or industrialised countries, Dirk Hofäcker presents the findings of his scholarly dissertation. The research was supported through the Volkswagen Foundation’s Globalife project, and the title neatly sums up the interaction of globalisation and its contextual influences on the people in work and after retirement. Hofäcker’s thesis is that most research has concentrated on the transition from work to retirement, which may of course say much about the anxieties of researchers themselves. This is a narrow but clear furrow to plough because most people think about their own position long before the event of actual retirement and in the context of other pressures and options. Hofäcker describes such deliberations as multi-dimensional. Similarly, he argues that research on the trend to early retirement has become rather over-generalised, with vague references often being made to the economy or social trends. This book is structured into three main parts: (1) an overview of globalisation and work in later life; (2) a macro-perspective of late careers; and (3) a micro-perspective using four countries’ experiences

In line or at odds with active ageing policies? Exploring patterns of retirement preferences in Europe

ABSTRACT Faced with demographic ageing, European policy makers since the mid-1990s have taken a turn from fostering early retirement to promoting longer working life by reducing early exit incentives and facilitating work continuation. However, it remains open whether these reforms are yet reflected in the retirement plans and preferences of future pensioners’ cohorts. Using most recent data on desired retirement ages from the fifth wave of the European Social Survey (2010/11 wave), this paper empirically investigates how far current policy reforms are in line with the retirement age preferences of older workers aged 45 and over. Results show that older workers approaching retirement ages still intend to retire before the politically envisioned age of 65, and in many cases also before nationally defined standard retirement ages. Despite visible progress in implementing active ageing measures, the challenge of motivating older workers to continue working until or even beyond retirement ages thus remains. At the same time, there are regime-specific problem groups that face difficulties in adjusting to the active ageing paradigm of longer working life. Especially in countries with little employment support, those with unstable work careers, employment interruptions and few financial resources are at a high risk of being crowded out from late career employment and thus from the possibility of ensuring a decent standard of living in old age.

Flexibility and work‐life conflict in times of crisis: a gender perspective

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the effect of flexible working conditions on work-family conflict in European countries. Flexible work has increasingly been used by employers to adapt to the demands of economic competition, often at the expense of employees demands. Yet, at the same time, flexible work can provide a means to better combine work and family obligations. The paper seeks to explore which of these effects dominates for different types of flexible employment, paying specific attention to gender-specific effects. Design/methodology/approach – For the cross-national analysis of work-life-conflict, the authors employ the latest wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) from 2010, featuring a module on “Family, work and well-being”. Binomial logistic regression is used to identify determinants of work-life-conflict both on the micro- and the macro-level. In addition to looking at flexible work forms as a phenomenon per se, specific attention is given to the experience of different types of employment flexibilization throughout the financial crisis. Findings – For both genders, irregularity and unpredictability of working hours negatively impact on work-life conflict beyond the mere amount of working hours. Yet, higher autonomy in choosing ones work time is used very differently: While women tend to use their control over working hours to achieve a better work-life-balance, men tend to use these arrangements to increase their work commitment, thereby enhancing their perceived work-family conflict. The authors argue that this gender-specific use of flexible work arrangements might still reflect the traditional gender roles and gender-segregated labour market structures. Adding to previous literature, the authors furthermore demonstrate that gender-specific differences are also apparent in the effects of the most recent economic crisis.

HRM and the employment of older workers: Germany and Britain compared

This study examines Human Resource Management (HRM) policies and practices towards older workers in Britain and Germany. While it is widely suggested that older workers have to be better integrated into the labour market, youth-centric HRM is still prevalent. However, HRM is shaped by multiple and contradictory pressures from the international and national institutional environments. We test this dynamic by analysing two national surveys, the German firm panel (IAB) and the British Workplace and Employment Relations Survey (WERS). Our findings suggest that the institutional environment shapes HR policies and practices distinctively in both countries. We find that age discrimination at the workplace is more prevalent in Germany than in Britain, which can be explained by divergent institutional patterns. As a result, we argue that although both countries will have to continue fostering an age-neutral HR approach, this has to take country-specific institutional peculiarities into account.

Trends and determinants of work-retirement transitions under changing institutional conditions : Germany, England and Japan compared

Many governments world-wide are promoting longer working life due to the social and economic repercussions of demographic change. However, not all workers are equally able to extend their employment careers. Thus, while national policies raise the overall level of labour market participation, they might create new social and labour market inequalities. This paper explores how institutional differences in the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan affect individual retirement decisions on the aggregate level, and variations in individuals’ degree of choice within and across countries. We investigate which groups of workers are disproportionately at risk of being ‘pushed’ out of employment, and how such inequalities have changed over time. We use comparable national longitudinal survey datasets focusing on the older population in England, Germany and Japan. Results point to cross-national differences in retirement transitions. Retirement transitions in Germany have occurred at an earlier age than in England and Japan. In Japan, the incidence of involuntary retirement is the lowest, reflecting an institutional context prescribing that employers provide employment until pension age, while Germany and England display substantial proportions of involuntary exits triggered by organisational-level redundancies, persistent early retirement plans or individual ill-health.

Globalized Labour Markets and Social Inequality in Europe

List of Tables List of Figures Preface Foreword G. Esping-Andersen Notes on Contributors PART I: INTRODUCTION Globalized Labour Markets and Social Inequality in Europe S. Buchholz, K.Kolb, D.Hofacker & H.Blossfeld PART II: COUNTRY-SPECIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS ON CONSERVATIVE WELFARE REGIMES Selective Flexibilization and Deregulation of the Labour Market S.Buchholz & K.Kolb The Flexibilization of the Dutch Labour Market R.Wielers & M.Mills PART III: COUNTRY-SPECIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS ON SOUTHERN EUROPEAN WELFARE REGIMES The Flexibilization of the Spanish Labour Market J.Martinez Pastor & F.Bernardi Italy: No Country for Young Men (and Women) P.Barbieri PART IV: COUNTRY-SPECIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS ON SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC WELFARE REGIMES A Recipe for Coping with the Challenge of Globalization? D.Hofacker Changing Work-Life Inequality in Sweden T.Korpi & M.Tahlin PART V: COUNTRY-SPECIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS ON POST-SOCIALIST WELFARE REGIMES The Estonian Form of Globalization J.Helemae & E.Saar From Guaranteed Employment to Job Competition A.Baranowska PART VI: COUNTRY-SPECIFIC CONTRIBUTION LIBERAL WELFARE REGIMES The Effects of Flexibilization on Social Divisions and Career Trajectories in the UK Labour Market C.Purcell, M.Flynn, & U.Ayudhya PART VII: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION The Flexibilization of European Labour Markets and the Development of Social Inequalities D.Hofacker, S.Buchholz, K.Kolb, & H.Blossfeld Index

Changing Retirement Transitions in Times of Paradigmatic Political Change: Toward Growing Inequalities

For almost three decades since the 1970s, many European countries followed a strategy of early retirement to mediate the repercussions of increasing globalization and rising economic insecurities (Blossfeld et al., 2006, 2011). Initially intended only as a temporary strategy, early retirement soon turned into a common political practice. The establishment of early retirement as a labor market phenomenon was accompanied by the gradual emergence of an “early retirement culture,” that is, the shared perception by both employers and employees of early retirement as a “normal” way to exit from employment. However, given foreseeable population and labor force aging, many European governments in the last decade have taken a paradigmatic shift from “early exit” to “active aging” policies aiming at the promotion of longer labor market maintenance of workers approaching formal retirement ages.

Selective Flexibilization and Deregulation of the Labor Market. The Answer of Continental and Southern Europe

In this article, we reconstruct the institutional responses of differentEuropean welfare states and their implications for individual life course and employmenttrajectories and the related nation-specific patterns of social inequality. In doingso, our article brings together the combined evidence from various internationalcomparative research projects carried out over the past 15 years. Our assumption isthat there exist typical regime-specific strategic patterns in institutional reactions toglobalization that imply specific life course consequences. By means of cross-nationalcomparison, we aim to elaborate whether there is a specific institutional strategy, commonto Continental and Southern European countries, to deal with rising flexibilitydemands which gives rise to specific patterns of flexible work forms and structures ofsocial inequality. Furthermore, we argue that the repercussions of rising flexibilizationhave not remained limited to the employment sphere but also strongly impacted onfertility and family formation in these traditionally rather family-oriented welfare states.Our international comparative research results show, in fact, that fertility decline andpostponement of family formation can be considered as results of the selective labormarket deregulation in Southern and Continental Europe.