Aging & Social Change: Thirteenth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

The reform of Sweden’s pension system with the introduction of a flexible (increase in) retirement age, and the adding of age as a ground for discrimination into the Discrimination Act, raise questions on how this is reflected on the job market. This study explores in what ways government agencies respond to these changes in their recruitment practices, focusing on how they portray themselves as attractive employers to older jobseekers. The study intends to contribute to an understanding of how a policy shift related to age norms manifests itself in public sector recruitment practices. Through the collection of pictures of people and texts posted on employment websites from over 100 government agencies in Sweden, a mixed method analysis was employed with the use of image analysis of persons portrayed and content analysis of written texts. The result shows that the agencies rather emphasise youthfulness and energetic appearances, often associated with younger adults, in pictures of persons posted on their employment websites. When describing the advantages of the agency as a workplace, references to benefits or other aspects of interest to older jobseekers, such as the right to longer vacation, part-time retirement possibilities, and anti-discrimination work on age are less frequent. Thus, government agencies still appear to be influenced by age norms in their recruitment practices where older jobseekers remain in the margins. This implies a need to further investigate age norm change in relation to the enhancement of diversity in recruitment practices by the public sector regarding older jobseekers.