How Does the Statutory Retirement Age Affect Older workers’ Employment in Relation to Individual and Work‐Related Factors?

ABSTRACT

Policies aimed at increasing employment among older people often focus on the statutory retirement age. Taking into account the characteristics of workers and work-related factors, we examine the impact of reaching the statutory retirement age on continuing employment. In addition to the use of survival trees, we propose a novel method to predict the probability of staying in employment based on an ensemble of survival trees. We focus on Poland as an example of a European country with a particularly low share of older workers in the labor force. Moreover, reform was carried out in Poland in 2017, lowering the previously raised pension eligibility age. Like other EU countries, pension eligibility in Poland starts after reaching the statutory retirement age. Our results suggest that the timing of retirement is determined by the statutory retirement age to a limited extent compared to other factors. In the case of women, a match of education and occupation, the employment sector, and holding a managerial position had a greater impact on continuing employment than reaching retirement age. In the case of men, the type of job contract had the greatest impact on continuing employment. Our findings indicate that the policies and initiatives aimed at extending working life should pay more attention to work-related factors and gender differences in employment.

KEYWORDS:

• Length of working life
• older workers
• pension system
• population aging
• retirement age
• survival models

Key Points

• Reaching the statutory retirement age was not the key reason for leaving employment.

• The main cause for the difference in the probability of employment of older people was the education level.

• For women, the education-occupation match had the strongest impact on the probability of employment.

• For men, the type of job contract had an even greater impact on the probability of employment.

• Policies should focus more on work-related factors and gender differences in employment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/08959420.2023.2284570.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.