Marcel Erlinghagen

Participation of Older Europeans in Volunteer Work

The contemporary discussion about the growing ‘burden of population ageing’ should not neglect the substantial productive potential of older people. Using micro-data from the 2004 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), this paper examines the relationships between selected socio-demographic characteristics and the rates of participation in voluntary work in 10 European countries among those aged 50 or more years. The analysis reveals a clear spatial pattern, with relatively high participation rates in Northern Europe and relatively low participation rates in Mediterranean countries, and shows that age, education, health and involvement in other social activities strongly influence an individuals propensity to engage in volunteer work. A multivariate logistic regression provided no indication that the country differences can be explained by variations in population composition or attributes, such as the age structure or differences in health status. The findings have important implications for future cross-national research and for policies to promote the participation of older adults in voluntary work, and suggest that policies and programmes to encourage older citizens to make greater use of their productive capacities are feasible. It is concluded that further research needs to account for the influences of institutions and culture on participation in volunteering, the finding of this paper.

VOLUNTEERING AFTER RETIREMENT

ABSTRACT In view of the steady growth in life expectancy in recent decades the question is increasingly being raised whether and how older people should be encouraged to be more active, and particularly to engage in unpaid voluntary work. Taking adult life as a whole the conditions for such charitable involvement would appear to be especially favourable after retirement. However, these analyses, which are based on German longitudinal data, show that the effect of entering retirement is often exaggerated. Rather, the individuals previous volunteering experiences are of major importance in his decision to take up and continue voluntary work in later life. At the same time the analyses show how important the major resources of health and education are, particularly for participation in voluntary work during ageing.

Unemployment as an Institutional Construct? Structural Differences in Non-Employment between Selected European Countries and the United States

A comparison of unemployment rates in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, the UK and the United States suggests poor performance by the German labour market. The present study endeavours to show that a more sophisticated picture of unemployment can be drawn by taking into account additional forms of non-employment (such as incapacity, retirement or labour reserve). For this purpose, data from the ‘European Social Survey’ (ESS) and the survey ‘Citizenship, Involvement and Democracy’ collected in 2004 and 2005 have been analysed. While ‘unemployment’ plays a dominant role in Germany, people with comparable demographic characteristics and similar health status are more likely to identify themselves as ‘permanently sick or disabled’ and hence are classified thus in other countries. The results of this study underline that an international comparison of labour market performance, particularly a comparison of the effectiveness of labour market and social policy reforms, should not rely only on employment and unemployment rates. Taking alternate forms of non-employment into account can enhance ones knowledge and understanding of the functional differences between the labour markets in Europe and the United States.

In search of turbulence Labour market mobility and job stability in Germany

In the course of the transition from an industrial to a service economy, fundamental changes in the functioning of the labour market are expected to occur. A number of authors assert that these changes will result in an increasing external-numerical flexibility of firms which is assumed to affect labour market processes in terms of a generally higher labour market mobility and a decreasing employment stability (‘high-velocity labour market’). This paper examines the hypothesis of a growing importance of numeric-external flexibility, applying simple descriptive statistical methods to the event-history data of the IAB Employment Subsample for the West German labour market covering the years 1976 to 1995. There is no evidence for an acceleration of labour market ‘churning’, but rather for a stagnation or even slight decline of labour market mobility since the 1970s. Furthermore, job stability has not decreased over time, as one might have expected, but rather increased. In spite of these general results it might be conceivable that service-sector jobs have become more unstable but that this effect is cancelled out by a considerable stabilization of jobs in manufacturing. It turns out, however, that there is no evidence for developments in the ‘old’ and ‘new’ labour markets to contrast in such a simple way. Services display divergent trends when broken down by sub-sectors; jobs in some of them have stabilized while there is no or an opposite change in others.

Volunteering in "Old" Europe: Patterns, Potentials, Limitations

This article aims at providing an overview of patterns, potentials, and limitations of formal volunteering among older Europeans. Based on data from the 2004 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we first describe cross-national variations in formal voluntary engagement and report on recent research investigating societal determinants of volunteering. We then discuss general issues related to policies and programs promoting older people’s voluntary engagement. This is complemented by some critical remarks on the current “productive aging” debate in Europe. Pointing out limitations of volunteering in the older population, we conclude by suggesting a broad concept of aging, which encompasses both productive and consumptive elements, as an appropriate model for our aging societies.

Entlassungen und Beschäftigungssicherheit im Zeitverlauf. Zur Entwicklung unfreiwilliger Arbeitsmarktmobilität in Deutschland

Zusammenfassung In der wissenschaftlichen ebenso wie der öffentlichen Diskussion spielt die Frage, wie sich der Arbeitsmarkt im Zuge zunehmender Flexibilisierungsanforderungen an Betriebe und Arbeitnehmer gewandelt hat, eine zentrale Rolle. Dabei wird unter anderem auch angenommen, dass in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten die Beschäftigungssicherheit von Arbeitnehmern kontinuierlich abgenommen habe. Unter dem Eindruck von Massenentlassungen und steigenden Arbeitslosenquoten wird vermutet, dass Arbeitsmarktmobilität zunehmend unfreiwillig insbesondere in Form arbeitgeberseitiger Entlassungen auftritt und freiwillige Mobilitätsprozesse demnach an Bedeutung verlören. Auf Basis der Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) untersucht der Beitrag für Westdeutschland, inwiefern zwischen 1985 und 2001 arbeitgeberseitige Entlassungen gegenüber arbeitnehmerseitigen Kündigungen zugenommen haben. Die ausführlichen deskriptiven und multivariaten Analysen zeigen dabei, dass das Ausmaß unfreiwilliger Entlassungen im Zeitverlauf insbesondere durch konjunkturelle Einflüsse bestimmt gewesen ist. Jenseits dieser konjunkturellen Schwankungen lässt sich allerdings kein Bedeutungszuwachs arbeitgeberseitiger Entlassungen feststellen. Summary The question how labor markets have changed in the course of the increasing demand for flexibility on the part of employers as well as employees plays a prominent role in scholarly as well as in public debate. As a result, it is hypothesized that job security has shrunk continuously over the last few decades. Impressed by mass unemployment and growing unemployment rates it is suggested that voluntary notice-giving has lost in importance and labor market mobility has been increasingly determined by involuntary lay-offs. Based on the data of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP) and restricted to West Germany the paper investigates wheather lay offs have gained in importance compared to voluntary notice between 1985 and 2001. The descriptive as well as the multivariate results show that the extent of involuntary lay-offs is noticeably influenced by the business cycle. However, if cyclical influences are taken into consideration there is no empirical evidence for an increase in the importance of lay-offs in the period studied.

Die individuellen Erträge ehrenamtlicher Arbeit

ZusammenfassungUnter dem Eindruck der aktuellen politischen und wissenschaftlichen Debatte um die Zukunft des Ehrenamts stellt sich die Frage nach dem individuellen Nutzen ehrenamtlichen Engagements. In einer dynamischen Betrachtung wird deutlich, dass es sich auch bei unentgeltlicher ehrenamtlicher Beschäftigung um Arbeit handelt, die in Erwartung zu erzielender individueller Erträge ausgeübt wird. Durch die Verbindung von soziologischen und mikroökonomischen Aspekten verdeutlicht der Beitrag, wie sich ehrenamtliche Arbeit in das Produktionsarrangement des privaten Haushalts einfügt, wobei ehrenamtlich tätige Individuen Erträge in Form von Transaktionskostenersparnissen sowie Größen-und Verbundvorteilen erzielen können.AbstractIn the recent debate on the future of voluntary work and honorary appointments the question of the individual benefits of volunteering is of special interest. In a dynamic perspective it is obvious that an unpaid voluntary activity has to be regarded as work because of the individual’s expectation to yield a personal gain. Combining a sociological and a micro-economical perspective, volunteering is shown to be part of the production process within the private household. Volunteers gain returns by reducing transaction costs and by deriving benefits from economies of scale and economies of scope.

Self-perceived job insecurity across Europe over time: Does changing context matter?

Self-perceived job insecurity is characterised by a considerable variation across European countries; this is mostly attributed to different labour market conditions and welfare-state institutions. In addition to the previous, often static examination of these determinants, this study asks how labour market dynamics and changes in welfare-state interventions are linked to individuals’ perceptions of job insecurity. It is argued that the changing context represents a set of shared experiences that serves as a frame of reference for the perception of job insecurity. Hence, time series of context indicators provided by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and data from the European Social Survey are used to conduct multilevel analyses. The results reveal that job insecurity is dynamic, as it increases in countries facing an economic crisis, such as Greece, but decreases in countries with prosperous development like Poland. Furthermore, the results reveal that the past development of the labour market and changes in welfare-state interventions contribute to the explanation of individuals’ perceptions of job insecurity. The response to these changes differs, however, depending on the dimension of job insecurity and the socio-economic characteristics of the workers.

Ehrenamtliche Arbeit und informelle Hilfe nach dem Renteneintritt

Aus gesamtgesellschaftlicher Perspektive nimmt die Beteiligung an informeller Arbeit (zur Begriffsdefinition vgl. Erlinghagen 2000a und Hank/Erlinghagen in diesem Band) zunachst mit steigendem Lebensalter zu, erreicht im Alter von etwa 35 bis 55 Jahren ihren Hohepunkt, um dann anschliesend wieder zuruckzugehen (Goss 1999; vgl. auch Wilson 2000: 226). Jedoch hat gerade die Beteiligung alterer Menschen an informeller Arbeit im Verlaufe der letzten Jahre und Jahrzehnte zugenommen (Goss 1999). In Deutschland stellt so die altere Bevolkerung derzeit die groste Wachstumsgruppe im Bereich des freiwilligen Engagements dar (Gensicke 2005; Erlinghagen et al. 2006).

Perceptions of Job Security in Europe’s Ageing Workforce

Using data from the 2004 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, this paper investigates older workers’ perceptions of job security in eleven countries. We describe cross-national patterns and estimate multilevel models to analyse individual and societal determinants of self-perceived job security in the older labour force. While there are considerable cross-country variations around a median value of 23% of workers aged 50 or older ranking their job security as poor, none of our suggested macro-level explanatory variables—employment rate, employment protection legislation, mean level of general social trust, and proportion disapproving of working beyond age 70—bears statistically significant associations with individuals’ job security. We find some indication, however, that the various societal factors considered here might contribute jointly to explaining the observed cross-national variation. Future research should aim at identifying statistically more powerful indicators of the supposed multilevel relationship between social context and older workers’ perceptions of job security. Moreover, supplementary findings indicate that further attention should be paid to the gender dimension of job insecurity.