Older Worker Policies in EU Countries - Results of Project "Equalizing Opportunities on Labor Market for People Aged 50+"  

Oleh:

Szukalski, Piotr

Jenis: Article from Proceeding
Dalam koleksi: The International Symposium on Social Sciences (TISSS) and Hong Kong International Conference on Education, Psychology and Society (HKICEPS) at Hongkong, December 2013, page 1017-1021.
Topik: Worker Policies; EU Countries; Labor Market; Aged 50+
Fulltext: Hong Kong-Conference 178.pdf (623.39KB)

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In present day Europe we can observe slow popularization of an attitude towards individual's aging founded in the concept of active aging. Getting old while remaining active is perceived as a tool that helps to counteract population aging, because – if you think about the cycle of life – contrary to appearances, it does not only refer to the period of old age, but it is also connected to the impact on attitude of individuals and of communities towards long period of individual aging, as well as to the willingness to prepare yourself for that period in some of the most important areas of activity: professional work, health, relations with others, securing an adequate standard of living, education, etc. [Szukalski, 2009: 39-55]. The key assumption of active aging concept is the belief that it is necessary to persuade individuals to remain socially productive for as long as possible. And this productivity here is defined as: "any activity that generates goods and services, regardless of it being remunerated or not, including such activities as housekeeping, child care, voluntary services, helping the family or friends” [Hinterlong et all., 2001: 7]. The approach promoting active aging is founded in one proposition and two assumptions. The postulate is about giving the individual opportunity to be socially productive for as long as possible. The two assumptions in turn, which determine realization of the above mentioned proposition, are concerned with: 1) the necessary redefinition of "social productivity" term, 2) the necessary preparation of individuals and communities for achieving the goal, i.e. opportunity of remaining productive for as long as possible. Where redefinition of social productivity is concerned, the aim is to go beyond the traditional, economic understanding of that term. Usually productivity is linked with efficiency and employment of an individual, and it takes into consideration only individual's position in the labor market. Meanwhile, nowadays social productivity also refers to usefulness outside of labor market – which can be attributed to housekeeping and voluntary work. The starting point for realization that preparations aimed at retaining productivity are necessary is the statement maintaining that in the fast changing world significant part of knowledge, skills, and qualifications of an individual quickly becomes obsolete, what follows than is that the willingness to be productive for a longer time must be closely connected to the will of refreshing those elements of human resources, which lose relevance. As a result of this, we have emerging realization that the situation of older people and the future success of whole communities depend on the course of typical life paths of the community members, careers achieved by them, sequences of events that make up those careers, and most importantly distribution in time of those events. Social policy then tries to ever greater extent influence the courses of the careers, which are perceived as pivotal from the community's point of view – this concerns professional careers, educational careers, family, health, and the mentioned impact includes both the attempt to shape individual careers, and more and more often to shape career groups – that is careers that occur together in the same time and frequently compete with each other.

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