Hostname: page-component-5db58dd55d-688nx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-06-11T21:22:09.120Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Work–retirement cultures: a further piece of the puzzle to explain differences in the labour market participation of older people in Europe?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2017

ANDREAS JANSEN
ANDREAS JANSEN*
Affiliation:
Institute for Work, Skills and Training (IAQ), University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.
*
Address for correspondence: Andreas Jansen, Institute for Work, Skills and Training (IAQ), University of Duisburg-Essen, Forsthausweg 2, 47057 Duisburg, Germany E-mail: andreas.jansen@uni-due.de
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The article examines to what extent culture is a further piece of the puzzle to explain differences in the labour market participation of older people in Europe. This approach is in clear contrast to the existing literature on that topic which is largely economically oriented and more focused on socio-economic determinants. In the first part, different theoretical conceptions regarding the impact of culture on individual actions are discussed with the aim of developing the concept of work–retirement cultures. In the second part, the article gathers empirical evidence on differences in the work–retirement culture in 22 European societies and analyses the interplay between the work–retirement culture and the labour market participation of people aged between 55 and 64 years using logistic random intercept regression analysis. The analysis draws on the third round of the European Social Survey. The results give some clear indications that the work–retirement culture plays its part in explaining differences in the labour market participation of older people in Europe and thus clarifies that the timing of retirement is not fully determined by pension policies. Accordingly, the results of the study illustrate that it is not sufficient to solely change the legal rules for the transition to retirement. Rather, people need to be additionally convinced of the individual benefits of remaining in employment.

Keywords

culturelabour marketolder workerstransition to retirementwork–retirement culturepension policy

Information

Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 38 , Issue 8 , August 2018 , pp. 1527 - 1555
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aboim, S. 2010. Gender cultures and the division of labour in contemporary Europe: a cross-national perspective. The Sociological Review, 58, 2, 171–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adler, G. and Hilber, D. 2009. Industry hiring patterns of older workers. Research on Aging, 31, 1, 69–88.Google Scholar
Alesina, A. and Giuliano, P. 2013. Culture and institutions. NBER Working Paper 19750, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Anderson, K. M. 2015. The politics of incremental change: institutional change in old-age pensions and health care in Germany. Journal of Labour Market Research, 48, 2, 113–31.Google Scholar
Alexander, J.C. 1990. Analytic debates: understanding the relative autonomy of culture. In Alexander, J.C. and Seidman, S. (eds), Culture and Society. Contemporary debates. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1–27Google Scholar
Archer, M. S. 1996. Culture and Agency. The Place of Culture in Social Theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Börsch-Supan, A., Brugiavini, A. and Croda, E. 2009. The role of institutions and health in European patterns of work and retirement. Journal of European Social Policy, 19, 4, 341–58.Google Scholar
Bosch, G. and Schief, S. 2007. Older employees in Europe between ‘work line’ and early retirement. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 13, 4, 575–93.Google Scholar
Brown, P. and Vickerstaff, S. 2011. Health subjectivities and labour market participation: pessimism and older workers’ attitudes and narratives around retirement in the United Kingdom. Research on Aging, 33, 5, 529–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, J. 1990. Foundations of Social Theory. Belknap, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Coppola, M. and Wilke, C. B. 2010. How sensitive are subjective retirement expectations to increases in the statutory retirement age? The German case. MEA Working Paper 207-2010. Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging, Mannheim, Germany.Google Scholar
Diewald, M. and Mayer, K. U. 2009. The sociology of the life course and life span psychology: integrated paradigm or complementing pathways? Advances in Life Course Research, 14, 1, 5–14.Google Scholar
DiMaggio, P. 1997. Culture and Cognition. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 263–87.Google Scholar
Ebbinghaus, B. and Hofäcker, D. 2013. Reversing early retirement in advanced welfare economies. a paradigm shift to overcome push and pull factors. Comparative Population Studies, 38, 4, 807–40.Google Scholar
Engelhardt, H. 2012. Late careers in Europe: effects of individual and institutional factors. European Sociological Review, 28, 4, 550–63.Google Scholar
Esser, H. 1993. The rationality of everyday behaviour. A rational choice reconstruction of the theory of action by Alfred Schütz. Rationality and Society, 5, 1, 7–31.Google Scholar
Esser, H. 1994. Explanatory sociology. In Schäfers, B. Sociology in Germany, Development – Institutionalization – Theoretical Disputes, Springer VS, Wiesbaden, 177–90.Google Scholar
Esser, H. 2001. Soziologie. Spezielle Grundlagen. Band 6: Sinn und Kultur. Campus, Frankfurt, Germany.Google Scholar
Esser, H. 2004. Does the new immigration require a new theory of intergenerational integration? International Migration Review, 38, 3, 1126–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esser, I. 2005. Continued work or retirement? Preferred exit-age in Western European countries? Working Paper, Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm, Sweden.Google Scholar
Etzioni, A. 2000. Social norms: internalization, persuasion, and history. Law and Society Review, 34, 1, 157–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eurostat 2016. European Statistics. Available online at http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/labour_market/introduction. [Accessed 16 November 2016]Google Scholar
Giddens, A. 1989. A reply to my critics. In Held, D. and Thompson, J. (eds), Social Theory of Modern Societies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 249–301.Google Scholar
Hank, K. and Buber, I. 2009. Grandparents caring for their grandchildren: findings from the 2004 Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe. Journal of Family Issues 30, 1, 53–73.Google Scholar
Hedström, P. and Swedberg, R. 1996. Social mechanisms. Acta Sociologica 39, 3, 281–308.Google Scholar
Hofäcker, D. 2015. In line or at odds with active ageing policies? Exploring patterns of retirement preferences in Europe. Ageing & Society, 35, 7, 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoggett, P. 2001. Agency, rationality and social policy. Journal of Social Policy, 30, 1, 37–56.Google Scholar
Hox, J. J. and Kreft, I. G. G. 1994. Multilevel analysis methods. Sociological Methods & Research, 22, 3, 283–99.Google Scholar
Hult, C. and Edlund, J. 2008. Age and labour market commitment in Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Work, Employment & Society, 22, 1, 09–28.Google Scholar
Jansen, A. and Knuth, M. 2015. Labour market innovations and policy learning. National Report Germany. INSPIRES-Working Paper Series. Rotterdam, Netherlands, Available online at: http://www.inspires-research.eu/userfiles/National%20Report%20Germany_WP4_WP5_05012016.pdf.Google Scholar
Jansen, A. 2013. Kulturelle Muster des Altersübergangs: Der Einfluss kultureller Werte und Normen auf die Erwerbsbeteiligung älterer Menschen in Europa. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 65, 2, 223–51.Google Scholar
Jo, N. K. 2011. Between the cultural foundations of welfare and welfare attitudes: the possibility of an in-between level conception of culture for the cultural analysis of welfare. Journal of European Social Policy, 21, 1, 5–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohli, M. 1985. Die Institutionalisierung des Lebenslaufs: Historische Befunde und theoretische Argumente. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 37, 1, 1–29.Google Scholar
Kohli, M., Rein, M., Guillemard, A.M. and Van Gusteren, H. 1991. Time for retirement: comparative studies of the decreasing age of exit from the labour force. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Kohli, M. 2007. The Institutionalization of the life course: looking back to look ahead. Research in Human Development, 4, 3/4, 253–71.Google Scholar
Lindenberg, S. 1985. An assessment of the new political economy: its potential for the social sciences and for sociology in particular. Sociological Theory, 3, 1, 99–114.Google Scholar
Lindenberg, S. and Frey, B. 1993. Alternatives, frames and relative prices: a broader view of rational choice theory. Acta Sociologica, 36, 3, 191–205.Google Scholar
Minkov, M. and Hofstede, G. 2014. Clustering of 316 European regions on measures of values: do Europe's countries have national cultures? Cross-cultural Research, 48, 2, 144–76.Google Scholar
Möhring, K. 2012. The fixed effect as an alternative to multilevel analysis for cross-national analyses. GK SOCLIFE Working Paper 16, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.Google Scholar
Mutual Information System on Social Protection (MISSOC) 2016. Comparative Tables. Social Affairs and Inclusion Unit EMPL/C/2, Directorate of General Employment, European Commission. Available online at http://www.missoc.org/index.htm [Accessed 17 November 2016].Google Scholar
Neugarten, B., Moore, J. and Lowe, J. 1965. Age norms, age constraints, and adult socialisation. American Journal of Sociology, 70, 6, 710–7.Google Scholar
North, D. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Reilly, J., Nazio, T. and Roche, J. M. 2014. Compromising conventions: attitudes of dissonance and indifference towards full-time maternal employment in Denmark, Spain, Poland and the UK. Work, Employment and Society, 28, 2, 168–88.Google Scholar
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2012. Pensions Outlook. OECD Publishing, Paris.Google Scholar
Pfau-Effinger, B. 2004. Socio-historical paths of the male breadwinner model – an explanation of cross-national differences. British Journal of Sociology, 55, 3, 377–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pfau-Effinger, B. 2005. Culture and welfare state policies: reflections on a complex interrelation. Journal of Social Policy, 34, 1, 3–20.Google Scholar
Polavieja, J. G. 2015. Capturing culture: a new method to estimate exogneous cultural effects using migrant populations. American Sociological Review, 80, 1, 166–91.Google Scholar
Rabe-Hesketh, S. and Skrondal, A. 2008. Multilevel and Longitudinal Modeling Using Stata. Stata Press, College Station, Texas.Google Scholar
Radl, J. 2012. Too old to work, or too young to retire? The pervasiveness of age norms in Western Europe. Work, Employment and Society, 26, 5, 755–71.Google Scholar
Radl, J. 2013. Labour market exit and social stratification in Western Europe: the effects of social class and gender on the timing of retirement. European Sociological Review, 29, 3, 654–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riach, K. and Loretto, W. 2009. Identity work and the ‘unemployed’ worker: age, disability and the lived experience of the older unemployed. Work, Employment and Society, 23, 1, 102–19.Google Scholar
Riker, W. and Ordeshook, P. C. 1973. An Introduction to Positive Political Theory. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Settersten, R. A. and Mayer, K. U. 1997. The measurement of age, age structuring, and the life course. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 233–61.Google Scholar
Snijders, T. A. and Bosker, R. J. 1999. Multilevel Analysis. An Introduction to Basic and Advanced Multilevel Modelling. Sage, London.Google Scholar
Swidler, A. 1986. Culture in action: symbols and strategies. American Sociological Review, 51, 2, 273–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor-Gooby, P. 2008. Assumptive worlds and images of agency: academic social policy in the twenty-first century? Social Policy and Society, 7, 3, 269–80.Google Scholar
Topa, G., Moriano, J. A., Depolo, M., Alcover, C. and Moreno, A. 2011. Retirement and wealth relationships: meta-analysis and SEM. Research on Aging, 33, 5, 501–28.Google Scholar
Vaisey, S. 2009. Motivation and justification: a dual-process model of culture in action. American Journal of Sociology, 114, 6, 1675–715.Google Scholar
Vaisey, S. 2010. What people want: rethinking poverty, culture, and educational attainment. Annals of the American Academy, 629, 1, 75–101.Google Scholar
Van Solinge, H. and Henkens, K. 2005. Couples’ adjustment to retirement: a multi-actor panel study. Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 60B, 1, 11–20.Google Scholar