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Older workers and the labour marketOlder workers have special concerns. They may be anticipating or already experiencing health problems involving either themselves or family members. They may have developed interests outside work that they wish to pursue. Both possibilities offer older workers good reasons to voluntarily withdraw from the labour market. However, some older workers may leave the labour force involuntarily. Older workers who remain in or return to the labour market may experience age discrimination, either by finding their job opportunities reduced, or having to accept lower-quality or lower-waged jobs (Hutchens 1988). Some may even conclude that further job search is fruitless. The resulting 'hidden unemployment' could resemble retirement (Osberg 1993; Samorodov 1999). On the whole, involuntary aspects of labour market withdrawal are ignored in analysis of retirement behaviour (Chan and Stevens 2001). This article evaluates the relative importance of retirement and involuntary job loss using self-reported reasons for job separation in cohorts of older workers (see Cohort incidence rates). Cohort career perspectivesMost often, analysts track changes in labour markets from month to month or from year to year as market conditions follow the ups and downs of the economy. An alternative, especially to describe the process whereby older workers wind up their careers, is to look at groups born in the same period-a cohort perspective. This article focuses on individuals who turned 50 years of age between 1976 and 1979. These cohorts' patterns of job separation and job acquisition in the years leading up to age 65 were reconstructed using data from 20 years of Labour Force Survey (LFS) files (see Data source and definitions). The cohort perspective is especially valuable in determining the chances of eventual retirement. In the early 1900s, when farming was still a major source of employment, many people continued to work until poor health or death intervened. The probability of ever retiring was low. In contrast, today's typical career is more likely to end in retirement. However, it is difficult to say how much more likely retirement is now than previously. To do so, it would be necessary to ask workers if they were withdrawing from the labour market because of retirement or ill health. Similarly, some older workers may lose their jobs before choosing to retire; some of these are better described as involuntarily unemployed than retired. Again, to classify them correctly, it would be necessary to determine their intention. Men are traditionally seen as working continuously at a full-time job until retirement, at which point they leave the labour force and remain permanently retired. However, this picture is far from complete (Blau 1994). By tracking the cumulative incidence of job separation and job acquisition of selected cohorts between the ages of 50 and 65, it is possible to identify self-described retirement as well as other patterns of labour market activity. Classifying events according to the reason given for job separations provides some sense of workers' intentions (Table). Only about half of men and one-third of women ever retiredRetirement as a self-reported event appears to be relatively infrequent. Only about 51% of men and 30% of women in the selected cohorts had retired from a job by age 65. Seen another way, only about 16% of all job separations by men aged 50 to 65 were retirements; for women, the percentage was 12%. Therefore, in many cases, the job separation that ultimately ended a career must have been a layoff, an illness or disability, or a family-related event. Estimates of job acquisition indicate that, by age 65, 14% of men and 7% of women had retired and then started a new job within a year-about 27% and 23% of retirees. This is a significant proportion. Trying to determine who would qualify as retirees in the traditional sense-those who retired between ages 60 and 65 from a job held since at least age 50-shows that only 20% of men and 10% of women fit the pattern. Older workers had considerable job turnoverThe cumulative total of job separations between ages 50 and 65 averaged 3.2 for men and 2.6 for women. Since only one final separation is possible, the others must have been part of the normal labour market churn. Indeed, the majority of separations involved a layoff-more often permanent than temporary-and a considerable number involved job switching. Less often, job separations were associated with illness or disability, which would not necessarily have resulted in a permanent separation. 1 Overall, about 60% of all job separations, for both men and women, could be classified as involuntary. Other than retirement, family reasons and job dissatisfaction were cited least frequently; however, a considerable fraction of separations remained unclassified under 'other' reasons. Since the overall incidence of job separation was substantially greater than one, subsequent job acquisition must have been considerable. This is indicated by the overall averages of 2.7 acquisitions for men and 2.2 for women between ages 50 and 65. These typically followed within 12 months of job separation. Most instances of involuntary job separation were followed by a job acquisition within 12 months. Job acquisition occurred less frequently after voluntary job separation and was least likely following a self-described retirement event. Employment attrition similar for older and younger workersThe high rates of job change experienced within these cohorts contradict the view that careers of older workers are characterized as either a process of gradual disengagement or a stable plateau preceding an abrupt final withdrawal. But does the apparent volatility of work among older workers result because the job-separation rates of older workers are particularly high? One index of employment attrition is the proportion having lost a given job after a specified time. These one-year, job-separation rates are calculated for men and women by single year of age averaged over a 25-year period-a period long enough to represent a full range of economic conditions. The rates are derived from estimates of those employed in a job for one year or more and are expressed as a proportion of those employed a year earlier and a single year of age younger. From 30 to 60 years of age, workers had similar one-year rates of job separation averaged over multiple macro-economic cycles (Chart A). (Averaging over 25 years has the disadvantage of averaging over secular trends as well as economic cycles. In particular, the age profiles of employed women changed markedly over the period.) Employment attrition rates were highest for those under 25 and those over 60. In the latter case, one-year job-separation rates seemed exceptional only near the traditional age of retirement. Lower employment for older workersIf the declining labour market activity of older workers cannot be explained by rates of employment attrition that increase with age, then part of the explanation must lie in lower rates of re-employment. Re-employment ratios representing persons who are employed but with job tenure of less than one year complement one-year attrition rates. They do not measure flows into employment; rather, they represent jobholders with recently acquired jobs as a proportion of the population excluding longer-tenured jobholders. As with job-separation rates, these re-employment ratios are 25-year averages. The chances of being re-employed decline steeply from about age 25 and continue steadily downward thereafter (Chart B). Older workers experienced rates of job separation similar to those of much younger workers, and their separations were more often involuntary than not. Older workers seem to differ from younger workers more by their lower rate of re-employment than by their decision to retire. Retirement in perspectiveSome economists have expressed concern about the effect inducements to early retirement in the form of generous pension entitlements may have on the employment decisions of older workers (Blöndal and Scarpetta 1998). Longer life expectancy coupled with ever-earlier retirement is seen as threatening the actuarial soundness of defined-benefit pension plans. With longer lives but shorter careers, retirees draw benefits for a longer time while contributing to the plan for a shorter time. Job changes at career-end suggest that barriers or disincentives to re-employment for older workers should also be of concern. Among the reasons for job separation, only retirement seems to express an intention to withdraw from the labour market. And, since only a bare majority of men and a minority of women explicitly retired, many older workers seem to be interested in continued employment.
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AuthorThe authors are with Social and Economic Studies Division. Geoff Rowe can be reached at (613) 951-8215 or perspectives@statcan.gc.ca. Huan Nguyen can be reached at (613) 951-3744 or perspectives@statcan.gc.ca.
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