Masa Higo

Government as Institutional Entrepreneur: Extending Working Life in the UK and Japan.

Through the lens of Institutional Entrepreneurship, this paper discusses how governments use the levers of power afforded through business and welfare systems to affect change in the organisational management of older workers. It does so using national stakeholder interviews in two contrasting economies: the United Kingdom and Japan. Both governments have taken a ‘light-touch’ approach to work and retirement. However, the highly institutionalised Japanese system affords the government greater leverage than that of the liberal UK system in changing employer practices at the workplace level.

Why Japanese workers remain in the labor force so long: lessons for the United States?

As part of the search for ways to increase labor force participation rates among older workers in the United States, it makes sense to take a close look at evidence from Japan, one of the few industrial countries with a substantially higher labor force participation rate among older workers, particularly men, than the United States. Based mainly on prior studies and original interview data, we first discuss five potential factors which help explain why Japanese workers remain in the labor force as long as they do: (1) perceived economic necessity; (2) the large fraction of workers who are self-employed; (3) a culture that puts a high value on remaining in the labor force throughout the life course; (4) the long healthy life expectancy; and (5) the government’s role in facilitating the labor force participation of older workers. We suggest that the Japanese national cultural value on remaining economically productive well into old age clearly underlies the development of the government’s legislative initiatives aiming to extend the working lives of older workers. We then outline three policy suggestions for those seeking to increase labor force participation rates among older U.S. workers: (1) increase the financial incentive to workers who remain in the labor force; (2) improve public programs designed to foster efforts by older workers to become self-employed; and (3) increase the extent of government efforts to link older workers to prospective employers.

Global population aging: Unequal distribution of risks in later life between developed and developing countries

Much of the existing research on population aging has focused on its impact, including both opportunities and challenges, on developed countries, particularly those in Europe and North America. This article discusses how unequally population aging will distribute risks in securing socio-economic resources for the wellbeing of individuals in later life between developed and developing countries around the world. Based on a documentary analysis of relevant literature and findings from the survey data drawn from Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations (UN), and World Health Organization (WHO), this article discusses four main areas of the unequal distribution of risks in later life: (1) burden of disease in epidemiological transition, (2) financial security in retirement, (3) familial resources for elderly care, and (4) care workforce for elderly care. While population aging is a global trend, its impact is not equal; over the next decades, today’s developing countries will likely contend with double challenges at least in these areas.

Reforms of Retirement Policies: Three Common Paths in Aging in Japan and Korea

ABSTRACT Faced with an unparalleled rate of population aging, Japan and Korea have been reforming their retirement policies. To date, however, while the age of mandatory retirement has increased, employees continue to face significant decreases in compensation and other working conditions, typically at age 60 in Japan and age 55 in Korea. Three factors have contributed to shaping the path of the policy reforms in both the countries, including (1) the productivist welfare regimes, (2) the structure of the labor market for young workers, and (3) seniority-based wage and compensation systems.

Workplace Accommodation for Older Teachers in Japan and Germany: The Role of the Institutional Context in Supporting Late Career Options for Teachers with Ill Health **

Owing to the ageing of their respective populations, policy-makers in Japan and Germany are challenged to extend the working life of individual employees. However, conditions of physical and mental ill health tend to increase with old age, leading to disabilities that affect whether and how individuals can remain active in the labour market. Workplace accommodation is a means to enable disabled individuals to remain productively employed. Drawing on qualitative interview data, this discussion explores how institutions such as School Authorities in Japan and Germany use workplace accommodation to support teachers with physical and mental disabilities. Teachers are a white-collar profession strongly affected by ill health, especially burnout. The discussion furthermore explores how such workplace accommodation measures influence older teachers´ career expectations and career outcomes, including thoughts about (early) retirement. It finds that even though the institutional contexts in Japan and Germany are rather similar, career options and expectations vary, though with similar (negative) outcomes for national strategies towards the extension of working lives.

Japan: Determinants of Retirement in a Hyper-Aged Society

Today Japan is far ahead of the rest of the world on the aging curve of the population and faces unprecedented pressure to delay workers’ retirement. In this national context, workers’ retirement decisions and behaviors are largely determined, at the macro- and mesolevels, by the interplay between the government and employers over reforming mandatory retirement corporate policies thoroughly and uniformly institutionalized across the country’s workplaces, which are set at ages much younger than in most other developed countries around the world. The primary microlevel determinants of retirement include the persistent gender roles, which have still affected many female workers, those currently aged 50 and older in particular, as they are often rendered as primary caregiver for children, aged parents, and the household.

Rapid Population Ageing and Reforms to Contractual Mandatory Retirement in Japan and South Korea

Rapid population ageing in Japan and South Korea requires reforms to retirement policies, especially the contractual mandatory retirement of workers at age 60. The experience of other nations suggests that Japan and South Korea can amend retirement policies without undue impacts on productivity and economic performance.

Working Longer in National Contexts: Comparing Japan and the United States

This chapter aims to contribute to our understanding of age-diversity management by clarifying the importance of identifying older workers within their national contexts. While receiving relatively little attention outside cross-national comparative literature, national contexts are powerful determinants of individuals’ labour market behaviours over the course of their working lives (Freeman 2007). Particularly for older workers, national contexts powerfully shape opportunities and decisions at the workplace and in the labour market, including those related to retirement and continued employment beyond conventional retirement ages (Walker 2005).