Matt Flynn

National institutions and employers’ age management practices in Britain and Germany: ‘Path dependence’ and option exploration

We pursue a comparative analysis of employers’ age management practices in Britain and Germany, asking how valid ‘convergence’ and ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ theories are. After rejecting the convergence verdict, we proceed to ask how far ‘path dependence’ helps explain inter-country differences. Through 19 interviews with British and German experts, we find that firms have reacted in different ways to promptings from the EU and the two states. Change has been modest and a rhetoric-reality gap exists in firms as they seek to hedge. We point to continuities in German institutional methods of developing new initiatives, and the emerging role of British NGOs in helping firms and the state develop new options. We argue that ‘path dependence’ offers insight into the national comparison, but also advance the idea of national modes of firm option-exploration as an important way of conceptualizing the processes involved.

Discrimination in hiring against immigrants and ethnic minorities: the effect of unionization

There has been a long debate concerning whether unions are exclusive or inclusive with respect to immigrants and ethnic minorities. In the exclusive view of unions, unionization is expected to increase the likelihood of employers asking questions that discriminate against immigrants and ethnic minorities and decrease the likelihood of employers asking Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) questions related to immigrant or ethnic minority status. The contrary is expected for the inclusive view. Our analysis, using New Zealand data for job applications, provides some support for the inclusive view of unions, as the higher the unionization rate, the more likely EEO information is sought, but no relationship is found between unionization rate and discriminatory questioning. This suggests that unions are probably helpful in promoting diversity but not yet in combating discrimination against immigrants and ethnic minorities in hiring.

Trade union responses to ageing workforces in the UK and Germany

Ageing workforces are placing conflicting pressures on European trade unions in order to, on the one hand, protect pensions and early retirement routes, and, on the other, promote human resource management (HRM) policies geared towards enabling their older members to extend working life. Using interviews from German and United Kingdom (UK) trade unions, we discuss how unions are both constrained and enabled by pre-existing institutional structures in advocating approaches to age management. In Germany, some unions use their strong institutional role to affect public policy and industrial change at national and sectoral levels. UK unions have taken a more defensive approach, focused on protecting pension rights. The contrasting varieties of capitalism, welfare systems and trade unions’ own orientations are creating different pressures and mechanisms to which unions need to respond. While the German inclusive system is providing unions with mechanisms for negotiating collectively at the national level, UK unions’ activism remains localized.

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.

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.

Political Congruence and Trade Union Renewal

The concept of political congruence is introduced as predictor or explanatory factor of trade union renewal. Strategic change is more likely to succeed when political congruence exists between the values, expectations and intended outcomes of the three sub-sets of leaders, activists and members in a union. Political congruence (P/c) is defined as convergence of shared political values and vision. For P/c to occur a particular chemistry of independent factors needs to coalesce. The authors note, in particular, that there have been exceptional periods of individual union growth, measured in terms of membership, density and effectiveness. These episodes of exceptional growth need to be studied and understood, if one is to make sense of debates on union ‘renewal’.

Defined benefit pension decline: the consequences for organizations and employees

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to use the theoretical and empirical pension literatures to question whether employers are likely to gain any competitive advantage from degrading or eliminating their employees’ defined benefit (DB) pensions. Design/methodology/approach – Critical literature review, bringing together and synthesizing the industrial relations, economics, social policy, and applied pensions literature. Findings – DB pension plans do deliver a number of potential performance benefits, most notably a decrease in turnover and establishment of longer-term employment relationships. However, benefits are more pronounced in some conditions than others, which are identified. Research limitations/implications – Most of the analysis of pension effects to date focuses primarily on DB plans. Yet, these are declining in significance. In the years ahead, more attention needs to be paid to the potential consequences of defined contribution plans and other types of pension. Practical implications – I...

The Impact of National Context on Age Diversity and Age Management: The Case of the UK and Hong Kong

This chapter explores how governments are responding to ageing demographics using two case studies: the UK and Hong Kong. Both economies are facing dual challenges: addressing chronic skills shortages which necessitate longer working lives and closing the gap in pension savings as citizens need to prepare for longer periods of old age. We will explore how governments in these contrasting economies are using both the levers of the welfare state and employment law to shape employment and savings patterns. Although the timing may differ, the two governments are following similar tracks of placing the onus for both extended working life and savings on individuals while not significantly intervening in firms’ business and Human Resource (HR) processes. The most significant difference between the two governments’ responses to ageing demographics lies in how they have been tackling workplace ageism since the beginning of the millennium. While the Hong Kong government focused its efforts on encouraging voluntary good practice by businesses, in the UK, regulations are now in place to curtail both workplace age discrimination and mandatory retirement. However, the latter interventions are directly in response to the European Union (EU)’s Lisbon Protocol, which directed member states to take action to raise participation rates of people aged 55–64.

The impact of national context on managing age diversity: The cases of the UK and Germany

This chapter discusses the impact of global and European Union (EU) wide pressures on age management in the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany. Following Walker (1999), ‘age management’ refers to the overall management of an ageing workforce. Although employers have been advised to take younger workers into consideration when framing age-management policies (Employers Forum on Age 2006; Low Pay Commission 2004; Snape and Redman 2003), EU policies have been focused primarily on raising older people’s economic activity (European Commission 2004). Accordingly, this research mainly concerns organisational initiatives to encourage older workers to remain in or re-enter work. Our focus on older workers is not meant to deny any discrimination experienced by younger workers, but focuses on how employers are reacting to government initiatives emanating from EU initiatives to bring older people into work.

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.