Description
Book SynopsisThis book considers what work and retirement mean for older women, how each is experienced, and how working fits with other facets of their lives. The authors draw on data collected from women themselves, employers, industry stakeholders and older workers’ advocates, to explore older women’s experiences of work and retirement against a backdrop of current policy efforts to extend working lives in response to ageing societies.
Contrary to common representations of the situation of older workers, the data reveal how workplaces can be seen as relatively benign, and retirement viewed positively. It contributes to academic debate regarding identity, purpose and meaning in later life, identifying challenges for work-focused public policy.
Students and scholars of human resource management, sociology, gerontology and social policy will appreciate the extension of understanding older women’s life course trajectories that the book offers. Public policy-makers will benefit from the different representations of older women in the book, and the identification of where they would benefit from policy changes.
Trade Review‘This book is among the first to solely focus on the work and retirement of older women. Much needed research in a field that is still dominated by male perspectives, whereas the older workforce consists of increasing shares of women.’ -- - Kène Henkens, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Table of ContentsContents: 1. Older women, public policy and work 2. Public policy, ageing and work, and longer working lives 3. Older women workers in Australia: the study 4. Older women’s experiences of working 5. Older women in labour market transitions: leaving, looking for and moving into work 6. Older women and the transition to retirement 7. After work? Understanding older women’s portfolio life transitions 8. Customizing women’s portfolio work and ‘retirement’ careers 9. Teachers as older women workers: stakeholder comments 10. Conclusion: public policy leadership and change for women’s work and retirement References Index
