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Continued employment after retirement age

When people aged 65+ continue to work, it stabilises the pension system and can alleviate the shortage of skilled workers. The project looks at the factors that facilitate employment for over-65s and the motivation behind it.

Factsheet

Personal decision factors for working past 65

People’s individual reasons for continuing to work after retirement age were categorised on the basis of an international literature analysis and summarised in the following decision factors:

Social environment:

Partners, children and relatives play a crucial role in the decision to continue working (or not) on reaching retirement age. But the decision can also be influenced by whether the contact with work colleagues or friends outside work is good or strained.

Financial situation:

Some people need to keep working for economic reasons, while the financial incentive is less significant for others.

Personal connection with work:

If someone is fulfilled in their job, able to pursue their own interests and identifies with the values of the organisation they work for, they are more likely to want to go on working after retirement age. The same is true if someone is given a say in how much, how long and where they work. The opportunity to pass on their knowledge to younger generations also plays a role.

Health:

The decision whether or not to continue working also depends on the person’s health. To be able to continue working, you have to be physically and mentally fit enough

Previous decisions:

Decisions made earlier in life also influence the decision whether or not to keep working later on. This could be career-related – such as a continuing education course or a part-time contract – or outside work, such as a long break for family reasons or a house move.

Your Stage – the festival on the world of work for over-60s

The aim of “Your Stage – the festival on the world of work for over-60s” is to inform and sensitise both those active in the world of work and the general public about the issue of “Continued employment...

So how much longer will you be working?

In the brochure, which is available in three languages, three women and three men of retirement age explain why they’re still working. Some stayed in the sector they were familiar with – such as the healthcare sector or a university. Others decided to focus more on things they’d always loved doing, such as photography or singing. Together, these six portraits paint an intimate, varied picture of what working post-retirement can look like – with the familiar stereotypes nowhere to be seen.

Best practice from the engineering sector

The shortage of skilled labour is particularly acute among engineers. As part of the “Continued employment after retirement age” project, BFH asked two companies why they continue to employ staff after they retire, where they deploy the majority and what the benefits are.

Recommendations for action in Switzerland

A two-stage Delphi survey found that national and international experts from the fields of politics, labour economics, sociology and gerontology advocate for greater flexibility and more voluntary options in the transition to the post-employment phase. Partial retirement or the combination of earned income and pension income could make it possible to withdraw gradually from working life. However, social solidarity and system stability should be maintained and privileged groups should not be disproportionately favoured.

The results of this expert survey can be used to derive political, economic and cultural recommendations for measures to promote employment post-65.

Boost transparency and incentive of continued OASI contributions

Information campaigns can inform older staff about the advantages of continuing to contribute to their pension. The procedure for applying for a pension recalculation should be simplified.

Boost implementation and awareness of phased retirement options

The AHV-21 pension reform can be used specifically for phased retirement: this would require information tools for employers and employees to be developed, SMEs to be supported in their implementation and equal opportunities to be safeguarded across all industries and in a gender-sensitive manner.

Motivate employers to promote age-friendly working environments

Financial and technical incentives could motivate companies to introduce an age-friendly HR policy and voluntary benchmarking. Relevant initiatives such as Focus50plus can be supported and publicised further.

Educate and raise awareness

The promotion of training and awareness-raising programmes for HR professionals and managers can counteract age discrimination in hiring and promotion. To adequately address the complexity of age-related challenges, intersectional dimensions should be included here.

Monitor the implementation of pension reforms and incentive systems

A national monitoring system should be created to analyse the impact of pension reforms and incentive systems on different population groups.

Working after 65: “Yes please” or “No thank you”?

In Switzerland, almost half of employees aged 45 and over can imagine continuing to work after retirement. Nevertheless, many questions still remain unanswered. The research project “Continued employment after retirement age” looks at six important social issues relating to extending your working life.

  • Health: how does working after retirement affect your health?
  • Perceptions: how are older employees perceived?
  • Off to a new job: how do job search and job placement work in old age?
  • Early decision: what incidents influence the decision to continue working?
  • Care and support: how can work and informal care be combined?
  • Different backgrounds: does everyone start at the same place?

Current situation + approach

As society ages, the proportion of the population under the age of 65 decreases. This poses a challenge for pension schemes and further exacerbates the already evident shortage of skilled labour in various professional fields. Increasing the participation in the labour market of people over 65 could help to stabilise the pension system and alleviate the shortage of skilled workers – particularly in jobs with low mobility.

The project “ Continued employment after retirement age” sheds light on the motives, enabling factors and obstacles to continuing to work beyond the statutory retirement age. This allows the diverse target groups among the over-65s to be specifically addressed and recruited to the labour market in greater numbers.

Drawing on international expertise and the relevant stakeholder groups in Switzerland, the project also analyses employer-side and legislatively regulated incentive structures and proposes concrete improvement measures. The project considers three different decision-making levels:

  1. The legal regulations at the macro level: to what extent does a person of retirement age still have legal access to the labour market?
  2. The organisations at the meso level: what working models can employers offer retirement-age employees?
  3. The individual micro level: what are older employees’ personal arguments for or against continued employment after retirement age?

Reports and articles

Contact

Prof. Dr. Jonathan Bennett

  • Institutsleiter
  • +41 31 848 37 25
  • Show e-mail

age.int – International expertise for life in old age

AGE-INT is the largest national research project that takes a practice-driven look at the challenges and opportunities of demographic change with a trans- and interdisciplinary project team in the three largest language regions of Switzerland. The aim of the project is to identify knowledge and examples of best practice in selected priority areas both nationally and internationally and to make them visible and accessible to decision-makers and the broader public.

This project contributes to the following SDGs