Confronting Challenges (Asynchronous - Online Only)
Creating an Age-friendly Workplace: Using an Age Audit Approach
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lisa Hollis-Sawyer
Despite the clear aging trends in the U.S. and global population (e.g., World Health Organization, 2015), there has been a lack of “age audit” tools to evaluate the age-friendliness of workplace environments to facilitate older adults’ positive mental/cognitive health, physical health, social/interpersonal health, and general aging adaptation. The present study did a review of the literature and audit tools across several disciplines (psychology, gerontology, kinesiology, anthropometry, audiology, vision science, human resources management, architecture, and social factors engineering) regarding the assessment and design issues underlying “age-friendliness” in the workplace. Further, the research pilot-tested a new audit tool in two organizations (educational, industrial). The researcher, in coordination with two independent raters, conducted a content analysis of the different peer-reviewed articles and books across several disciplines and available age audit tools/approaches to identify: (1) current practices in age-friendliness assessments (e.g., “user-friendliness” of audit tools for practitioners), (2) potential biases/limitations in age assessments (e.g., “decline/decrement” aging perspective), and (3) “gaps” in evaluations to create a more holistic evaluation approaches. The following conclusions were made: (1) most assessments focused on one factor of functioning (e.g., psychomotor capability), (2) existing tools are limited in options and functionality for daily assessments, (3) most focus on decline and limitations in functioning, and (4) need to design multi-sensory, multi-function assessments reflecting an integrated and coordinated system of sensory, psychomotor, social, and cognitive performance. A holistic model of the outcomes for workplace design “fit” interventions to create more aging-friendly workplaces based upon pilot test results is presented.
Impact of Health on Extending Working Life for Irish Healthcare Workers View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Aine Ni Leime
Extending Working Life policies and in particular, the raising of state pension age is a common policy recommendation made by the OECD and adopted in many European countries in response tp population ageing. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that such policies may be problematic for certain groups of workers, including women those engaged in physically demanding and/or stressful work.This paper is based on a gendered, lifecourse analysis of interviews with 40 healthcare workers in Ireland, conducted in 2019/20. The impact of work-related health and how this interacts with other factors including gender, financial considerations and workplace and national policy on possibilities for extending working life is explored. The findings indicate that health can strongly constrain the capacity of many healthcare workers to remain in work past traditional state pension age. On the other hand, for many women, the increase in state pension age may push them to work for as long as possible to make up for time spent out of work due to caring responsibilities. The policy and research implications of the findings are explicated.
Intergenerational Contact in the Workplace: Testing Its Impact on Ageist Stereotypes and Discrimination, Workers' Engagement, and Intentions to Remain View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Martine Lagacé, Caroline D. Bergeron, Philippe Rodrigues Rouleau, Lise Van De Beeck
The last decade has seen an increase in research on initiatives to address ageism. Among these and in light of the Intergroup Contact Theory, intergenerational interventions seem to be promising routes for decreasing negative attitudes around aging. However, these interventions have seldom been examined in a workplace context where ageism remains prevalent. In light of previous findings from a Canadian pilot study suggesting that age-based intergroup contacts have a significant and positive impact on perceived ageism in the workplace, the current study extends on these findings and posits the following: 1) the more intergroup contact and knowledge sharing practices young and older workers have, the less they subscribe to ageism, through negative ageist stereotypes and discrimination and 2) in turn, lower levels of ageism lead to higher levels of work engagement and intentions to remain in the organization. To test these hypotheses, a total of 604 workers (18 to 68 years old) filled a self-report questionnaire measuring variables under study. Data was analysed through a path analysis. Findings partly support hypothesis in that levels of ageism mediate the link between age-based interventions and levels of workplace engagement. More so, such interventions have a direct effect on engagement that was not initially predicted. These findings provide strong empirical support to the Intergroup Contact Theory. They also offer interesting routes that workplace managers could explore when aiming to counter ageism in the workplace.
Extending Working Life Policies in the Swiss Finance Sector: When Seeing Is Not Necessarily Believing View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nathalie Rougier, Nicky Le Feuvre
The Swiss finance sector is renowned for “externalising” the problems associated with an ageing workforce. Historically, this was achieved through the widespread adoption of early retirement schemes that were aimed at their (usually male) senior management and with the voluntary reduction of working hours for their older (usually female) employees. Since the 2000s, there has been a slow change in the attitudes of Swiss banks towards their older workforce. This change in policy comes in the wake of a spate of redundancies, aimed at “modernising” financial services and reducing salary costs, notably through the negotiated departure of a disproportionate share of the older workforce. This paper examines the conditions under which Swiss banks have recently adopted a series of policies to support their employees throughout the years leading up to full retirement age, which currently stands at 64 years for women and 65 years for men. As part of the Dynamics of Accumulated Inequalities for Seniors in Employment (DAISIE) European Research Project, the paper draws on fieldwork carried out in 2019 in two large Swiss clearing banks. We use data from 40 biographical interviews with older (50+) bank employees in different occupations and geographical locations (small and large agencies, back / front office jobs, etc.) across French-speaking Switzerland, as well as expert interviews with their line managers and HR personnel.
Performing Care, Community, and Citizenship in Backstage Pass View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Julia Henderson
People with the lived experience of dementia [PWLED] are some of the most vulnerable older adults. During the COVID-19 pandemic many PWLED have experienced a pause in programs and services, and a separation from their families and friends, in the name of social distancing for community safety. This left them isolated at a time when they could benefit most from connection. However, the Vancouver Foundation-funded project Raising the Curtain on the Lived Experience of Dementia, of which I am a collaborator, responded to the pandemic by pivoting to resume its activities online, thus continuing its work with PWLED and in the process creating new approaches. This paper analyzes the project’s online artistic collaboration and engagement to co-create a two-day online performance that was live-streamed on YouTube and attended by approximately 130 people across the world. Titled Backstage Pass, the performance enabled PWLED to participate in live performance in ways that redressed loss-based dementia narratives and critically questioned understandings of assistance. Drawing on a range of age studies theories, including Basting’s concept of “creative care” and her work with PWLED, and the concept of “access aesthetics” from Disability Theatre (Johnston 153-61), I propose the concept of Dramaturgies of Assistance and Care [DAC] as a framework in progress that describes strategies and approaches to creating performance-as-care. Through examining expressions of DAC in this specific production, I offer ways we can think about theatre and performance as practices of reciprocal care, that embrace and promote personal agency, relationality, embodied selfhood, citizenship, and community.
Crone Development: Influences on Older Women Leading Major Projects View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Theresa Southam
Leaders may identify the word crone negatively as hag or witch, activating attitudes related to misogyny, sexism, and ageism (Rikke, 2019). They may be surprised to know, therefore, that there is a growing interest in women leaders, over the last few decades, in becoming a crone as a project of self-definition and personal empowerment (Lewis McCabe, 2004). Understanding “croneness” is an opportunity for men and women to embrace feminism, to appreciate the psyche of women, and to embrace the potentially wise ways afforded of female consciousness (Kinkead, 2015). In this study, a theory of communication, the Coordinated Management of Meaning (Pearce, 2007), is utilized to explore the nature of crone generativity (Morselli & Passini, 2015) and their generative capacities as leaders (Castillo & Trinh, 2019). Women over the age of 70 who have been actively engaged in crone development for at least one year, are asked to identify critical moments in communication related to their projects and to investigate those critical moments using the LUUUUTT model (stories lived, untold, unknown, unheard, untellable, told, and storytelling in culture). With this critical self-reflection as a precursor the women describe how their crone development influences their meaning-making (noticing, observing, reflecting, and engaging in their projects). The results demonstrate how crone development changes the ways in which older women lead major projects.
The Process of Rehabilitation, Return, and Stay at Work of Aging Workers Who Have Suffered an Injury: A Portrait Based on Stakeholder Perspectives View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alexandra Lecours, Guillaume Leonard, Jean Ruel, Marie-Michèle Lord
The workforce is aging in many countries around the world, including Canada. Since advancement in age is not without risk to health, aging workers are more likely to suffer an injury leading to a process of rehabilitation before returning and attempting to stay at work. There is currently not much research describing this process regarding this vulnerable population. The aim of this study is to describe the factors influencing the process of rehabilitation, return and stay at work of aging workers who have suffered an injury. According to an interpretative descriptive research design, individual interviews were conducted with seventeen participants to date (i.e., aging workers, families, rehabilitation professionals, representatives of employers, insurers, and unions). The themes 1) personal factors, 2) health and rehabilitation services, 3) work and organization characteristics, 4) compensation, as well as 5) facilitators, obstacles, and possible improvements were documented. The data was analyzed according to a thematic analysis strategy. Recruitment continues until saturation is reached. Preliminary results suggest that generational (e.g. work-related identity), personal (e.g. accumulated experience, decreasing capacities), organizational (e.g. financial resources and openness to difference), societal (e.g. labour shortage), and health-related (e.g. access to age appropriate treatments) factors would influence the process of rehabilitation, return and stay at work of aging workers who have suffered an injury. Proposing solutions to specifically improve the services offered to aging workers will promote their healthy participation at work, thus favouring their extended working lives.
Workplace Gender and Age Disadvantage and Retirement Decisions in Finance in Czechia View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alena Krizkova
Czechia has the highest rate of perceived age discrimination at work in the EU-28 comparison (54% compared to 35% EU-28 average experienced in the last 12 months). Czechia also holds other infamous primacies; one of the highest gender pay gap (with significant impact on gender pension gap), one of the highest negative impact of motherhood on employment. This paper focus is on experience of disadvantage and discrimination by age and gender in three professions within the Czech gender regime. Research shows that in Czechia women and men mostly retire at the statutory retirement age or as early as possible afterwards. Little is known about how disadvantage and discrimination is related to retirement decisions and how age interacts with gender in producing disadvantage. This analysis of perceived age and gender disadvantage and discrimination focuses on intersecting domains of jobs, welfare state and households. Later life employment in CR is especially important for women due to the paradoxical nature of the Czech gender regime with high employment rates, gender contract institutionalised within the welfare state and resulting in life course accumulation of disadvantage, low pensions, and poverty. Qualitative analysis uses 42 interviews with experts and 50+ women and men employed in financial services collected 2018 - 2019. Results show that disadvantage and discrimination is produced, experienced and understood by women and men in pre-retirement age within the specific Czech normative and policy context, which is deeply gendered and diversified by intersection of gender, age, class/profession, and household situation.
