Active ageing beyond the labour market: evidence on the role of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards at work

Abstract

‘Active Ageing’ strategies aim to foster the participation of seniors in the society. Although economic literature has extensively studied the incentives for seniors to increase their labour supply, little is known about the motivations for older people to complement labour with other forms of social participation. This article provides empirical evidence of the role of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards received at work in the supply of formal and informal productive activities of 50- to 65-year-old workers. The results show that workers with higher levels of intrinsic rewards received at work, such as skill development opportunities and decision latitude, are more likely to participate in social activities outside the labour market. Extrinsic rewards on the other hand, like advancement perspectives, job security and pay, appear independent from both formal and informal social participation.

Keywords:

• Job quality
• labour supply
• social capital
• informal care

JEL:

• J81
• J22
• J14
• C35

Acknowledgements

This work is part of the HEAPS research program (Health Economics of Ageing and Participation in Society) supported by grant number ANR-09-JCJC-0141-01 awarded by the National Research Agency, France. This paper uses data from SHARE release 2.5.0, as of 24 May 2011. The SHARE data collection has been primarily funded by the European Commission through the 5th framework programme (project QLK6-CT-2001-00360 in the thematic programme Quality of Life), through the 6th framework programme (projects SHARE-I3, RII-CT-2006-062193, COMPARE, CIT5-CT-2005-028857, and SHARELIFE, CIT4-CT-2006-028812) and through the 7th framework programme (SHARE-PREP, 211909 and SHARE-LEAP, 227822). Additional funding from the U.S. National Institute on Aging (U01 AG09740-13S2, P01 AG005842, P01 AG08291, P30 AG12815, Y1-AG-4553-01 and OGHA 04-064, IAG BSR06-11, R21 AG025169) as well as from various national sources is gratefully acknowledged (see http://www.share-project.org for a full list of funding institutions).

Funding

This work was supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (France) [grant number ANR-09-JCJC-0141-01].

Notes

¹ Due to currently incomplete or incomparable data, Ireland, Israel and Greece are not considered in our analysis.

² About 215 observations needed to be excluded due to non-response.

³ One main empirical implication is that whereas formal and informal volunteering (or help) are found to have different determinants (Hank and Stuck 2008; Wilson and Musick 1997), informal care and informal help on the other hand have very similar individual determinants (Hank and Stuck 2008).

⁴ Physical demands are captured through the item ‘My job is physically demanding’, and psychological demands through ‘I am under constant time pressure due to a heavy workload’.

⁵ These variables, respectively, captured through the items ‘I have very little freedom to decide how I do my work’, ‘I have an opportunity to develop new skills’, and ‘I receive adequate support in difficult situations’.

⁶ The measure of these rewards is, respectively, based on the items ‘I receive the recognition I deserve for my work’, ‘Considering all my efforts, my salary is/earning are adequate’, ‘My job promotion prospects/prospects for job advancement are poor’ and ‘My job security is poor’.

⁷ Highest certificate or degree obtained (including further education) applying the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED-97) coding, with three categories (primary, secondary and tertiary education).

⁸ The dummy for low health is coded as 1 for ‘good’, ‘fair’ or ‘poor’ self-reported health and 0 for ‘excellent’ and ‘very good’ health.

⁹ The variable capturing the household’s income is the log of the annual gross income of the household excluding individual earned income, adjusted for purchasing-power and consumption unit.

¹⁰ Further analyses performed on unpooled samples (details not shown) showed that individual, household and contextual variables had very similar effects on men and women’s behaviour.