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Rethinking Risk and Ageing: Extending Working Lives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

Jason L. Powell  and
Paul Taylor
Jason L. Powell
Affiliation:
The Department of Social and Political Science, University of Chester, UK E-mail: j.powell@chester.ac.uk
Paul Taylor
Affiliation:
The Department of Social and Political Science, University of Chester, UK E-mail: paul.taylor@chester.ac.uk
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Abstract

This paper critically examines the development of recent policy and theoretical issues concerning the ‘extension of working lives’ for older people in the United Kingdom. It grounds its analysis in ideas from the ‘risk society’ thesis (Beck, 1992) to explore how the matrix of population ageing, job and pension changes impinge on the shifting emphasis on increasing the retirement age, coupled with individualising pensions from state provision to a focus on self-responsibility via private provision. This neo-liberal re-positioning of extending work and pension policy has implications for the management of risk for older people in the UK. The paper explores the impact of population ageing on government ideas associated with social policy relating to extending working lives. It concludes with an assessment on the lessons policy makers and social policy analysts can learn from such shifts and the impact on the social construction of age.

Keywords

ageingemploymentriskpensions and social policy
Type
Themed Section on Policy Responses to Ageing and the Extension of Working Lives
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , October 2016 , pp. 637 - 645
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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