Desire to continue working and job-related factors of older workers in Germany

Abstract

Due to demographic change, especially in Germany, society and the labour market have to face new challenges. While the group of elderly workers grows, their sustainability will become more important in future (Höhn, C., Mai, R., & Micheel, F. (2008). Demographic change in Germany. In I. Hamm, H. Seitz, & M. Werding (Eds.), Demographic change in Germany: The economic and fiscal consequences (pp. 9–33). Berlin: Springer; Dittrich, D., Büsch, V., & Micheel, F. (2011). Working beyond retirement age in Germany: The employee's perspective. In R. Ennals & R. Salomon (Eds.), Older workers in a sustainable society. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang), hence the focus of our study are older people as one potential workforce. Especially in combination with an ageing population and a later entrance into the labour market, a future shortfall of active workers can be assumed. Germany – as one example of such countries – has only a limited number of options that policy makers and companies can use in the coming decades. The aim of the paper is to analyse the German labour market and derive a typology of older workers within the subgroup of blue-collar workers. The typology uses the level of motivation and work abilty (low, medium and high) for clustering proxy. The older age group is too heterogeneous, and therefore the factor age is not a good proxy. With the help of the study, it is possible to identify, classify and enhance the motivation of workers at the end of their career. Finally, powerful recommendations for companies on how to involve and motivate elderly workers for longer periods of employment can be derived.

Keywords:

• elderly workers
• blue-collar workers
• workability
• work motivation