Happy at a price: employment challenges, life satisfaction, and lifestyle benefits among older individuals in rural communities in Canada and Ireland

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we analyze individuals in rural communities within Ireland and two regions in Canada (Newfoundland and Ontario) to explore the relationship between employment, lifestyles and life satisfaction. A total of 106 participants were interviewed, with the vast majority being over forty years of age. We explore their employment experiences, and address two questions: how strongly is life satisfaction related to employment among older, rural adults?, and are there gender differences with respect to rural employment and life satisfaction? Relatively few of the participants we interviewed within these communities held permanent, full-time employment locally. Many of the ones holding (only) seasonal/casual employment or self-employment indicated that it was difficult to make a living, but were determined to stay and ‘make a go of it’. While the participants tended to tolerate, rather than be fully satisfied with, their employment conditions, the vast majority were satisfied or very satisfied with life, and many pointedly described the benefits of living in their chosen community. This held for women and men, and for those near 40 years of age (and among the few in this study who were younger), to those of retirement age. Typically, they were happy, but at a price.

RÉSUMÉ

Dans cet article, nous étudions la vie des personnes vivant dans les communautés rurales en Irlande et dans deux régions du Canada (Terre-Neuve et Ontario) pour explorer le lien entre l’emploi, le style de vie et la satisfaction de la vie. Au total, 106 participants ont été interviewés, la majorité d’entre eux étant âgés de plus de 40 ans. Nous explorons leurs expériences professionnelles pour répondre à deux questions : à quel degré la satisfaction de la vie des personnes âgées issues du milieu rural est-elle liée à leur emploi? et y a-t-il des différences entre les sexes en matière d’emploi et de satisfaction de la vie dans les milieux ruraux? Un nombre relativement petit des participants issus de ces communautés que nous avons interviewés exerçait un emploi local permanent et à temps plein. Beaucoup de ceux qui n’occupaient qu’un emploi saisonnier/occasionnel ou qui étaient des travailleurs indépendants ont indiqué qu’il était difficile de gagner sa vie mais qu’ils étaient déterminés à rester et à faire en sorte que « ça marche ». Bien que les participants tendent à tolérer plutôt qu’à être complètement satisfaits de leurs conditions d’emploi, la grande majorité étaient satisfaits ou très satisfaits de leur vie et beaucoup ont bien décrit les avantages de la vie dans leurs communautés choisies. Ceci est valable aussi bien pour les femmes que pour les hommes, et ceux proches de l’âge de 40 ans (et pour un petit nombre des plus jeunes qui ont participé à cette étude), et pour ceux à l’âge de la retraite. Globalement, ils étaient heureux, mais à un prix.

KEYWORDS:

• Older workers
• rural employment
• life satisfaction
• non-standard work arrangements
• atypical work
• job quality

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Travailleurs âgés
• emploi dans le milieu rural
• satisfaction de la vie
• arrangements au travail non-standardisés
• travail atypique
• qualité du travail

Acknowledgement

We wish to thank the insightful feedback from two anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Gordon B. Cooke is Associate Professor of Industrial Relations within the Faculty of Business Administration at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, Canada. He studies various ‘non-standard work arrangements’ like fluctuating work schedules, long or short work weeks, casual/on-call/non-permanent employment and unusual work locations (e.g. telework). Since these can affect workers differently according to age, family status, stage of life, or location, his current focus is on the employment options available to younger or older workers in rural communities of varying sizes in North Atlantic jurisdictions like Northwest Ireland, the Faroe Islands, Shetland, and especially, Newfoundland.

Deidre Hutchings holds Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Commerce degrees from Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Canada. Deidre has worked in managerial roles focused on policy and public programming since graduation and currently resides in Fredericton, New Brunswick. She is passionate about people and process and is committed to enhancing the lives of individuals, families and communities in the region she services through ethics-based, sound leadership.

Jimmy Donaghey is Professor of Management, Department of Management, Monash University. Prior to joining Monash, Jimmy was Professor of International HRM at the University of Warwick from 2015–2019. He joined Warwick as Associate Professor in 2010, having previously worked as Lecturer in Management at Queen's University Belfast, from where he received his Ph.D. His research interests broadly lie in the areas of international and comparative employment relations. His major current research focuses on the response to the Rana Plaza disaster and its implications for transnational employment relations. He is currently an Associate Editor for the Human Resource Management Journal.

Isik U. Zeytinoglu is Professor Emeritus of Human Resources and Management within the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. Her current research focuses on occupational health and safety of personal support workers in Ontario, employer flexibility strategies and non-standard employment issues, and job satisfaction, retention and employee wellness issues in Canada. She also conducts research on human resource management issues in Turkey.

Notes

1 Communities of interest were selected based on size and location. We were interested in small rural communities, some of which were isolated, and some of which were at the outer limit of daily commuting distance to urban centres.

2 Only one of these ‘daily’ commuters was able to telecommute (i.e. work from home) regularly, to reduce the number of trips to the employer’s work location.

3 While only two long-distance commuters were interviewed in our study, and one of those two were female, many of our participants commented on the complications of friends, relatives, or neighbours having this arrangement, as well as how almost all long-distance commuters are males.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number: 864-2007-0090].