Search

Objective: The aim of the study was to compare the employment perspective of older employees in different occupations in the health care sector. A distinction is made between three aspects of the employment perspective: until what age older employees want to, can and plan to work., Methods: The data are based on the second (2014) and third (2018) wave of the representative lidA study, which surveyed employees born in 1959 and 1965, at intervals of 3 to 4 years since 2011. In descriptive cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses, five occupational groups of the health care sector were compared to further selected occupational groups (N Sample =2.580)., Results: The occupational groups examined differed significantly in terms of their employment perspective. Employees in care professions stood out as, on average, they wanted to leave working life early, but most importantly, they could not work for as long as they had planned to. Longitudinal analyses indicated that the employment perspective shifted to higher age as the individuals approached the legal retirement age., Conclusions: Care professions are risk groups with regard to employment at higher working age and require special attention in health care organisations. The results also document substantial variability of employment perspective in individual employees over time. This finding has implications regarding opportunities for human resource management., Competing Interests: Die Autorinnen/Autoren geben an, dass kein Interessenkonflikt vorliegt., (Thieme. All rights reserved.)

Objective: The aim of this prospective study was to examine employer changes among older workers and to relate them to psychosocial work factors, health, and work ability. Four groups of employees as elaborated by Hom et al. (2012) were distinguished: Enthusiastic leavers (EL), reluctant leavers (RL), enthusiastic stayers (ES), and reluctant stayers (RS)., Methods: Repeated Measures ANOVA analyses were based on data from the second and third waves (2014, 2018) of the German lidA Cohort Study, a representative study of employees born in 1959 or 1965., Results: The largest proportion of participants was ES (73.3%), 13.2% stayed with their employer although they would have preferred to leave (RS). 7.1% changed employer between 2014 and 2018 voluntarily (EL), 6.4% involuntarily (RL). Analyses confirmed that the four groups already differed in 2014 in terms of health, work ability, and psychosocial work factors and that these outcomes change in different characteristic patterns over time. Most outcomes improved substantially following the change among EL. RS already reported poor outcomes in 2014 and exhibited a further deterioration while staying at the undesired workplace., Conclusion: Our findings indicate that an employer change is followed by improvements of work, health, and work ability. We conclude that an inclusive labor market policy for older workers allowing for high job mobility may have the potential to contribute to considerable improvements of workers' individual working conditions, health, and work ability, thereby increasing the work participation. Also, the considerable group of RL requires increased political and scientific attention.