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The aim of this study was to explore the employment of 60-68-year-old men and women by educational level over the period 2006-2018 and the magnitude of educational inequalities in employment. We used individual-level register data from Statistics Finland including all Finns aged 60-68 over a period of 13 years. In addition to calculating employment rates for men and women by educational levels, we estimated the relative index of inequality (RII) and slope index of inequality (SII) to measure the magnitude of relative and absolute educational inequalities in employment. The results show that the employment rates increased in all educational levels over the period 2006-2018. Relative educational inequalities in employment remained stable mainly among the 63-65-year-olds but decreased among the 60-62-year-olds and the 66-68-year-olds. However, absolute educational inequalities in employment increased in all age groups for both men and women., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Policies incentivizing longer working lives can remain ineffective if employers are not able and willing to employ an aging workforce. Depending on what employers consider appropriate age norms for work and retirement, they may be more willing to recruit and retain older workers. This study investigates how these retirement age norms differ across Europe and how they are related to country- and gender-specific pension policies and employment practices. The study uses data from the European Social Survey round 9 (collected in 2018) for 27 countries. Employers are identified as self-employed with personnel and managers who supervise others. The data include questions about the ages of when someone is too young to retire and when someone is too old to work. These items are combined and used in a set of multilevel interval regression models to analyze: (a) How employers' retirement age norms differ from those of employees and (b) How employers' retirement age norms vary across countries. The results indicate that, overall, employers have higher retirement age norms than employees, but that the difference narrows substantially once controlled for other factors. Employers' retirement age norms are positively related to countries' gender-specific statutory retirement ages and older-worker employment rates. In the case of statutory retirement ages, this association is stronger among employers than among various socioeconomic groups of employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional exit pathways shape individual trajectories from work to retirement. In the Netherlands, early retirement schemes as well as disability and unemployment benefits structure the timing and complexity of transitions within such trajectories. Simultaneously, access to these exit pathways depends on the individuals’ entitlements to various social security programmes as well as their freedom to decide on the timing and path of exit. In this study, sequence analysis was applied to register data of primary sources of income with the aim of identifying the main trajectories from work to retirement between the ages of 56 and 66 for a sample of Dutch men and women born between 1943 and 1945 (N = 2,277). Seven distinct trajectories were found: ‘early retirement’, ‘premature retirement’, ‘late retirement’, ‘disability’, ‘unemployment’, ‘inactivity’ and ‘drop-out’. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was applied to investigate the relations of these trajectories with a set of individual and socio-economic characteristics, as well as factors at a firm level. Especially women, non-natives, the lower educated and the self-employed were found to have a greater risk of ending up in the ‘involuntary’ trajectories of late retirement, disability, unemployment and inactivity. Public-sector employees, farmers and craftsmen, and skilled blue-collar workers were less likely to differentiate from the norm of entering into premature retirement between the ages of 60 and 64. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A health shock can have lasting consequences for the employment of not only the individuals experiencing it, but also their spouses. In this article, we complement the individual approach to the impact of health shocks with a dyadic perspective and show how employment opportunities and restrictions within couples are interdependent in the face of severe illness. We investigate whether the association between male spouses' health shocks and couples' employment trajectories depends on household specialization and both spouses' education. Multichannel sequence analysis is applied to retrospective life-course data from the Survey for Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe for couples with health shocks and their matched controls (N = 1022). By identifying typical employment trajectories, we find that health shocks are negatively associated with trajectories where both spouses continue in full-time employment and positively with trajectories where the man retires while the woman continues working and where both spouses retire simultaneously. Couples' trajectories differ according to the spouses' combined education levels. Findings suggest that health shocks may exacerbate economic inequalities within and between couples. • Health shocks affect the employment of individuals and their spouses. • Health shocks can be a turning point in couples' linked work lives. • Couples' adjustment to health shocks is related to their combined education levels. • Health shocks can exacerbate economic inequalities within and between couples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]