Older and Active: How Americans over 55 Are Contributing to Society 9780300157659

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Older and Active

Older and Active How Americans over 55 Are Contributing to Society EDITED BY SCOTT A. BASS

The Commonwealth Fund Americans over 55 at Work Program Yale University Press New Haven and London

Published with assistance from the Louis Stem Memorial Fund. Copyright© 1995 by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Designed by Sonia L. Scanlon. Set in Times Roman type by Marathon Typography Services, Inc., Durham, North Carolina. Printed in the United States of America by BookCrafters, Inc., Chelsea, Michigan. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Older and active : how Americans over 55 are contributing to society I edited by Scott A. Bass. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-300-06326-1 (alk. paper) 1. Aged-United States. 2. Voluntarism-United States. 3. Self-realization in old age-United States. I. Bass, Scott A. HQ1064.U5A63338 1995 305.26'0973-dc20 95-4262 CIP A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I

Contents

Foreword vii KAREN DAVIS, The

Commonwealth Fund

Acknowledgments ix

1 Older and Active SCOTT A. BASS

2 Health and the Employment Capability of Older Americans

10

HARVEY L. STERNS ANTHONY A. STERNS

3 Older Americans As Workers 35 MICHAEL C. BARTH WILLIAM MCNAUGHT PHILIP RIZZI

4 Increasing Volunteering among Older People 71 FRANCIS G. CARO SCOTT A. BASS

5 Older Caregivers and the Future of Informal Caregiving 97 PAMELA DOTY

6 Patterns of Support Given by Older Americans to Their Children 122 DAVID

J. EGGEBEEN

MARK 0. WILHELM

7 The Value of Productive Activities of Older Americans 169 KEVIN A. COLEMAN

CONTENTS

8 Dimensions of Productive Engagement 204 FRANCIS G. CARO SCOTT A. BASS

9 Training and Education of Older Americans As Workers and Volunteers 217 DAVID A. PETERSON PAMELA F. WENDT

10 Social Integration, Participation, and Exchange in Five Industrial Countries 237 MARTIN REIN HAROLD SALZMAN

11 Toward Pro-Work Policies and Programs for Older Americans 263 SCOTT A. BASS JOSEPH F. QUINN RICHARD V. BURKHAUSER

List of Contributors 295 Index 299

Foreword

Older Americans are an untapped resource, and many are willing, able, and well qualified to be contributing members of society. The opportunity to use this resource led The Commonwealth Fund, a national philanthropy engaged in independent research on policy issues, to undertake a five-year program to document and bring to public attention the tremendous productive capacity of older Americans. The program initially focused on opportunities for paid employment for older Americans. By 1991, however, its scope had expanded to consider other productive contributions by older people to society: providing care to sick or disabled family and friends, assisting younger generations within their families, and volunteering through organizations. This broader emphasis was warranted by a growing awareness not only that older people could help fill some of society's unmet needs but also that many were already doing so. The Commonwealth Fund Productive Aging Survey, conducted in 1991 by Louis Harris and Associates, documented the contribution of older Americans. It found that three out of four older Americans, some 38 million people, are actively engaged in contributing to society by working, volunteering, caring for sick or disabled family and friends, or helping their children or grandchildren. Moreover, participation in these activities remains high among those age 75 and over. Yet much of this contribution goes quietly unrecognized. Even today, many younger Americans picture their elders either as affluent, leisured retirees pursuing hobbies and recreation or as frail individuals. This volume, based on the findings of the 1991 survey, is intended to put those misconceptions to rest. It tells a story of productive, energetic seniors who are involved in their work, in the lives of their families, and in their communities. It also explores the reservoir of potential contributions that senior citizens are willing and able to make. By discussing the findings in a broad social and economic context, the book provides insight and guidance into the changes transforming American society as it approaches the twenty-first century. vii

FOREWORD

The Commonwealth Fund would particularly like to thank Scott A. Bass, the editor of this volume, and Michael C. Barth, director of the Americans over 55 at Work Program, for their work on this project. Their combined knowledge, insight, enthusiasm, and hard work are visible everywhere, from the selection of the survey questions through the final editing of the chapters. Through their efforts, the findings of the Productive Aging Survey have built upon the existing literature and research to develop a more complete picture of the productive activities and potential of people aged 55 and over. Karen Davis President, The Commonwealth Fund

Acknowledgments

This book would have not been possible without the support of the Commonwealth Fund and its five-year initiative, the Americans over 55 at Work Program. Originally led by Thomas Moloney, the program examined the economic and social roles of older people in the United States and several other industrialized nations. This book, which analyzes current knowledge on the subject of the productive engagement of older people and draws extensively upon the Commonwealth Fund Productive Aging Survey, was prepared under the leadership of Karen Davis, now president of the Fund. Throughout the development of the book, Michael C. Barth, senior vice-president at ICF, Incorporated, played a central role in the overall design, the selection of authors, and the critique of chapters. His participation and engagement concerning the substantive matters of the book far exceeded the formal role he was assigned as fiscal intermediary and project officer representing the Commonwealth Fund. His enthusiasm for the subject matter, his zeal for the review process, and his attention to detail were exemplary. For his support, as well as the assistance of his ICF colleague Philip Rizzi, I am most appreciative. There are several others in the Commonwealth Fund and ICF family who helped with this book project and the earlier survey on productive aging. They include William McNaught, who assisted with the Americans over 55 At Work Program, and Molly McKaughan, who assisted with the survey. Humphrey Taylor, president of Louis Harris and Associates, painstakingly worked with us in designing the survey, and, as contractor, took responsibility for the final survey design and its implementation in late 1991. His associates Ron Bass and Lois Hoeffter, who helped conduct the research and prepared the first presentation of the survey findings, played an important role in expanding our knowledge base on this subject. At the University of Massachusetts, Boston, I am most appreciative of the work of Jill R. Norton, my right-hand person, who served as managing editor. I use the phrase "my right-hand person" deliberately for, at ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

a late stage in the book's development, she was recovering from an accident and surgery and had very limited use of her right hand. She managed to continue assisting me with the book from home. During this time, James P. O'Brien, a colleague and editor, read and copyedited certain chapters and reviewed correspondence. His goodwill, responsiveness during difficult times, and support to all parties was important in the final preparation of this book. I should like to acknowledge the help of my colleague Francis G. Caro, who provided opinions of specific chapters, reviewed data sets, and prepared numerous new data runs for selected authors. We often discussed the developments of the book, and it was his advice I most frequently entertained in preparing this book. I am grateful to Yale University Press and our editor, Gladys Topkis. The subject of this book has not received its warranted attention, and it is my hope that this volume will encourage other scholars to pursue new inquiry into the implications of our aging society.

Older and Active

CHAPTER ONE

Older and Active SCOTT A. BASS

For nearly a decade, the roles that older people play in later life have been reexamined by scholars from a range of disciplines including sociology, economics, philosophy, and medicine. Advocates for the elderly from organizations including the American Association of Retired Persons, the Older Women's League, and the National Council on the Aging have frequently criticized the increasingly marginalized roles faced by many individuals as they age. Gerontological scholars such as Robert Morris, Harry R. Moody, Robert Butler, Herbert Gleason, AnneMarie Guillemard, and Chris Phillipson have questioned the societal expectation that simply because of age older people should withdraw from major economic and social activity. Given the significant variability of the aging experience, these authors have not provided precise definitions of an "older" person. However, the phrase customarily refers to those beyond the traditional retirement age of 65. It is not uncommon, however, to include people from age 55 on in the definition. This ongoing inquiry is not limited to the United States. Roles after retirement are a matter of concern throughout the world, especially in Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, and Sweden. Research over the past 40 years on the physiological and mental abilities of older adults has documented their sustained intellectual capacity. In Japan, the problem of role and meaning in later life is referred to as ikigai-a life worth living, a purpose in life (Campbell, 1992). Indeed, appreciation of the capabilities of the able aged in contemporary society knows no geographic borders. Interest in the social and economic roles older people can play has been increased by two demographic factors. First, more older people are alive today than ever before in history. This trend will not only con-

SCOTT A. BASS

tinue but accelerate. And second, older people are tending to live longer than ever before and, at least for those under age 85, with greater robustness. The prevalence, longevity, and health of the older adult population have helped to increase interest in the roles of people who remain independent and active past the traditional retirement age of 65. Despite the extension of life, older people in most industrialized countries have tended to leave the labor force at earlier and earlier ages, so that they live for longer and longer periods without traditional employment. This trend, in the United States at least, has helped fashion a new stereotype of older people as affluent and selfish, indulging in personal pleasures at the expense of the larger society. This negative stereotype is in direct reaction to an earlier one, equally false, which portrayed older people as poor, isolated, frail, and in need of public assistance. Of course, there are some older people who fit one or the other stereotype; however, neither picture-affluent retiree or frail dependent elderis an accurate reflection of the majority of older people in the United States or other industrialized nations.

Dift'erentiating among Activities The premise of this book is that most older people remain active well beyond the age of 60, many beyond 75, and some even after 80. Although most older people face chronic ailments, many are nevertheless able to participate in the tasks associated with paid or volunteer work. Most older people sustain active lives helping, caring for, and supporting others. Older people currently play productive, significant, and irreplaceable roles in families and communities throughout America. Yet the potential for an increase in their productivity remains evident from the research presented in this book. We know that many older people are busy, but being busy and playing a significant social or economic role are not synonymous. It is possible to be activeshopping, playing golf or cards, searching out restaurants, socializing with friends, or reading-without contributing in meaningful ways to the larger society or the care of another individual. In this book, we examine the activities in which people aged 55 or older are engaged that have economic value. Activities that are particularly pertinent in this context include working for pay; volunteering; career-related educational training; caring for another person (spouse, family member, friend, or neighbor); and providing child care to grandchildren,

Older and Active 3

great-grandchildren, or others. Each of these activities is discussed in detail in this book. We do not mean to imply that activities that are personally directed and recreation or leisure oriented are without value. Personal enrichment should be encouraged at all ages, and such activities have become normative for the older population. But it is the involvement of older people in activities that contribute to the larger society that we seek to understand. In an attempt to quantify the current and potential productive involvement of the older population, we have examined material from several national opinion surveys of the aged. The implications for the American social fabric and economy of tangible contributions by older people are substantial and need to be better understood. The many personal and reflective achievements of older people are important, but they are beyond the purpose of this book.

Variability among the Elderly If there is one conclusive statement that can be made about the elderly, it is that they vary enormously. For some, a lifetime of cigarette smoking, poor diet, and limited exercise produces an old age beset with chronic ailments and physical constraints; others seem to be impervious to these excesses. Aging can be a time of relatively good health and stamina, in which the individual sustains vigor and creativity. But some older people, despite healthy habits, are unable to weather the health and disability problems associated with aging. We have learned, however, that for those between 60 and 80, chronological age alone serves as a poor determinant and predictor of human capacity or potential (see chapter 2). Assessment of the potential of an older individual, as for a younger person, must be based on a battery of measures. In view of the enormous variability in capacity among older people, with most older people retaining the physical and mental skills to work or provide service well into their advanced years, and with an increased life expectancy for the general population, to what extent does the aging of our society present an untapped opportunity rather than a problem? What are the current dimensions of the productive engagement of older people, and what is the potential for enhancing that engagement? What public policies, regulations, and programs need to be emphasized or changed to support working or volunteering into the

SCOTT A. BASS

later years for those who choose to do so? The researchers whose work is represented in this book have considered these and other questions. Throughout this book, drawing from national surveys, the authors provide new evidence about both the current activities of older people and the possibilities for the future. The concluding chapter specifically discusses public policies that can provide a more positive environment for encouraging older people to continue to work.

The Commonwealth Fund Productive Aging Survey Beginning in 1988, the Commonwealth Fund, a large philanthropic foundation in New York City, undertook a series of studies of Americans over 55 at Work. The program initiated several national surveys and one comparative five-nation survey, all conducted by Louis Harris and Associates. It also funded several smaller-scale case studies, prepared reviews of the literature, commissioned numerous papers, published articles and reports, disseminated information, and sponsored numerous sessions at national conferences. The initiative brought increased interest to a subject that heretofore had received little serious scholarly research and public attention. This book, which has been supported by the Fund, is the culmination of its "Americans over 55 at Work Program." The book goes beyond the data sets of the Commonwealth Fund research program and places the overall subject of each chapter in the context of other literature and research to develop a perspective on the activities and engagement in society of older people. Still, most of the chapters draw heavily on the Commonwealth Fund Productive Aging Survey conducted between October 25, 1991, and January 2, 1992, by Louis Harris and Associates. Given the importance of the data from this survey, the fact that a scholarly review of the findings has not been published previously, and the fact that the authors of this book were given exclusive access to the data (which are now available to the public for secondary analysis), a brief discussion of the survey design and methodology seems fitting. Through a grant to the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, representatives from the Commonwealth Fund, ICF Incorporated (a national research firm which provided administrative oversight for the entire Americans over 55 at Work Program), and Louis Harris and Associates developed a telephone survey to examine areas of older-adult productivity,

Older and Active 5

including work, volunteer activities, care for grandchildren or great-grandchildren, care for the sick and disabled, and career training or retraining. Representatives from each of the three organizations collaborated in the design of the survey instrument, with Louis Harris and Associates actually carrying out the data collection. The designers of the 1991 Commonwealth Fund survey sought to provide an overview of the productive activities of people aged 55 and older rather than a detailed study of any single aspect of productive engagement. More about the survey design and findings can be found in two 1992 reports, Productive Aging: A Survey of Americans Age 55 and Over, prepared by Humphrey Taylor, Ron Bass, and Lois Hoeffter of Louis Harris and Associates, and Patterns of Productive Activity among Older Americans, by Francis G. Caro and Scott A. Bass. The survey completed 2,999 interviews with a random sample of noninstitutionalized persons (those not in nursing homes, religious or educational institutions, hospitals, or prisons) living in the continental United States. The sample was stratified to ensure representation of different regions of the country and metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas reflecting actual distributions within 1 percent of the 1990 Census Bureau data. In addition to gathering basic demographic information, the 25-minute telephone survey was developed to answer a battery of questions centered on six themes: 1. The allocation of time by older Americans to selected productive activities. 2. The numbers and characteristics of people 55 years old and older currently working, and the potential for those currently not working (of the same ages) to be attracted to the work force (in chapter 3, Barth, McNaught, and Rizzi examine the findings of the survey in detail). 3. The numbers and characteristics of people 55 years of age and older currently volunteering and the potential for those currently not volunteering to become volunteers; the attitude of older people toward the volunteer experience; and the nature of preferred volunteer work (in chapter 4, Caro and Bass draw upon these findings to examine specific barriers to the voluntary participation of older people and ways of increasing it). 4. The extent to which people 55 years of age and older help their families by taking care of grandchildren or great-grandchildren and their attitudes

SCOTT A. BASS

about providing this support (in chapter 6, Eggebeen and Wilhelm use this information together with other research to examine the intergenerational flow of support and resources). 5. The extent to which people 55 years of age and older provide care to sick and disabled individuals and their attitudes about providing this support. (In chapter 5, Doty examines the 1991 Commonwealth Fund survey findings in light of the existing literature on informal caregiving. The 1982 Informal Caregivers Survey and the 1989 National Long-Term Care Survey,! in conjunction with the Commonwealth Fund survey, extend our knowledge base about older caregivers in America.) 6. The current experience of those 55 and older, their interest in job training to improve their employment-related skills, and their opinions about participation in such educational programs (in chapter 9, Peterson and Wendt compare these findings with the literature on the retraining of older workers). In addition to the traditional closed-ended questions, the survey used a vignette approach adapted from the factorial design method developed by Peter Rossi (1982). Instead of answering a series of sequential questions, the respondents were asked to respond to vignettes that described volunteer and educational opportunities. For each question, a number of situations and circumstances were presented in no particular order. The respondent could give responses to the overall situation. The premise of the factorial survey approach is that when people make decisions they tend to respond to complex situations as a whole: they usually do not break them down into discrete parts, rate each part separately, and then sum the parts to make a decision. The advantage of the factorial design is that it provides a rich quantitative approach to examining decision making. The vignettes are included along with the full survey in the appendix.

I. National Long-Term Care Surveys (NLrcs) were carried out in 1982, 1984, and 1989

among nationally representative samples of functionally disabled elderly living in the community. The 1982 and 1989 NLTCS included companion Informal Caregivers Surveys (Ics). The 1984 and 1989 NLrcs were designed to provide statistically valid longitudinal followup data for some outcomes--for example, termination of informal care in favor of nursing home placement is complete only for the period of 1982-84. These surveys were sponsored by agencies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, the Administration on Aging, the Health Care Financing Administration, and the National Institute on Aging have each been involved as sponsors in various years and for various components of the NLrcs ).

Older and Active 7

Summary of the Chapters In chapter 2, psychologists Harvey L. Stems and Anthony A. Stems review the literature and discuss the mental health and physical capacity of older Americans and their ability to engage in productive activities beyond the traditional retirement age. As Stems and Stems note, compelling evidence indicates that most people are both intellectually and physically able to continue in major work or volunteer activities well into the later years of life. In chapter 3, economists Michael C. Barth, William McNaught, and Philip Rizzi provide a detailed discussion of survey research findings, which reveal large numbers of retired people indicating that they are ready and able to continue working despite the historically downward trend of labor-force participation levels of older people. Findings point to possible changes in future labor-force participation among older people. In chapter 4, policy analysts Francis G. Caro and Scott A. Bass examine participation among older people in volunteer organizations. The authors argue that survey findings point to ways to increase the already significant participation levels of older people in volunteering. In chapter 5, Pamela Doty, a sociologist, evaluates the extent of support provided by older friends and relatives to those who need care. Evidence indicates high levels of caregiving by older people, and many older people report that caregiving provides them with meaningful rewards rather than being a burden. Doty examines the 1991 Commonwealth Fund Productive Aging Survey findings in light of the existing literature on informal caregiving, especially the 1982 Informal Caregiver Survey and the 1989 National Long-Term Care Survey. Chapter 6 reflects the joint efforts of economist David J. Eggebeen and sociologist Mark 0. Wilhelm to examine existing research and current national data sets on interg~nerational transfers and mutual support between older and younger people. Chapter 7, by economist Kevin A. Coleman, is a path-breaking analysis of the economic contributions of older people based on existing survey data. The chapter provides the first rigorous quantitative estimates of the economic value of the various productive activities of older Americans. Coleman develops several ways of calculating the current and potential economic contributions of adults 55 years of age and older in the United States. The figures, which reach many billions of dollars when examined in the aggregate, indicate the enormous value of the unpaid contributions of older people. In chapter 8, Francis G. Caro and Scott A. Bass provide an overview of the participation

SCOTT A. BASS

levels of older people in several productive activities. Findings indicate that participation in more than one specified productive activity as well as the aggregated level of involvement across several activities reflect high levels of participation among older people even into the later ages. In chapter 9, educators David A. Peterson and Pamela F. Wendt consider training and career-related education among older people. Peterson and Wendt examine myths and stereotypes concerning older learners and find both capacity for and interest in careerrelated educational opportunities among some older people. In chapter 10, Martin Rein and Harold Salzman, both sociologists, provide a theoretical and empirical examination of activity and meaning in later life among older people in five industrial nations. Their formulations are based on 12 recent research findings from the Commonwealth Fund's Five-Nation Survey. In chapter 11, Scott A. Bass, Joseph F. Quinn, and Richard V. Burkhauser examine current public policy regarding older people and paid work. Quinn and Burkhauser are both economists. The chapter makes a series of specific recommendations designed to enhance the involvement of older people in the labor force. Previous efforts to discuss the productive activities of older people have focused on a single sector of activity or presented general notions about human capacity without providing quantitative evidence of actual activity level. Research sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund has made it possible to provide a more precise description of the productive activities of older people in America. Many of the issues about the United States raised in this book reflect matters of concern in other nations. The recommendations for changes here, however, which are aimed at establishing a more favorable set of policies for older people who choose to work, are specific to the United States. This volume, along with a growing literature, is designed to shatter some of the prevailing negative images and stereotypes of older people. It intends to show the extent of older people's activities and engagement in society in detail and suggest ways to maximize the potential of those 55 and older. Older people do indeed encounter barriers and obstacles to their desire for sustained participation in American life (see Bass, Caro, and Chen, 1993). This book does not focus on these barriers but acknowledges their existence and pervasiveness. Further, it seeks to identify policy changes that affect working, volunteering, caregiving, and career-related training that will encourage greater participation among older people. Still, negative images and stereotypes are sure to persist

Older and Active 9

for years to come. Barriers will be encountered by older people who want to remain active. The emergence of large numbers of active older people in our society is too novel to expect immediate or dramatic change. Never before in the history of humanity have so many had the opportunities afforded by prolonged life. It will take time to grapple with the implications of an extended lifetime and to shape meaningful roles and purposeful activity for older peopleand it will be a struggle. Yet struggle and transformation are taking place right now in every aspect of our society. We hope that this book will provide added scholarly insight to the remarkable transition that is taking place in America and other industrial nations.

References Bass, S. A., Caro, F. G., and Chen, Y.-P. (Eds.) (1993). Achieving a productive aging society. Westport, Conn.: Auburn House. Campbell, J. C. (1992). How policies change: The Japanese government and the aging society. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Caro, F. G., and Bass, S. A. (1992). Patterns of productive activity among older Americans. Boston: Gerontology Institute, University of Massachusetts, Boston. Rossi, P. H., and Nock, S. L. (1982). Measuring social judgments. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage. Taylor, H., Bass, R., and Hoeffler, L. (1992). Productive aging: A survey ofAmericans age 55 and over. Draft report for the Commonwealth Fund and the University of Massachusetts by Louis Harris and Associates. Study no. 902061.

CHAPTER TWO

Health and the Employment Capability of Older Americans HARVEY L. STERNS AND ANTHONY A. STERNS

People are living longer today than ever before. And unless they are hospitalized, homebound, or in need of long-term care, older Americans are healthier than they have ever been. At the same time, people who are living longer may face old age with fewer resources than previous generations. As a result of the wish to occupy their days and to be productive, and the need for income, it is likely that Americans will want to work longer into their lives than previous generations. Will they be able to? To some degree, of course, the answer will depend upon the aggregate economy and where a given individual lives. But it will also depend to a large extent on the attitudes of potential employers. On the basis of several recent surveys, it appears that employers have a mixed view of the value of older workers. Anecdotal evidence and an upsurge of age discrimination suits suggest that some employers' attitudes toward older workers are negative. In this chapter we examine the evidence on the relationship of age to health and employment capability. How do mental and physical health vary with age? How much does chronological age matter in the ability of an individual to fulfill the requirements of a job?

Will More Older People Want to Work? Many people today assume that most older workers retire before or around their sixty-fifth birthday. They expect that they themselves will retire at about the same age. But retirement as we know it has been experienced by large numbers of people only in the past two generations (Sonnenfeld, 1988). A major theme of the 1971 White House Con-

Health and Employment Capability 11

ference on Aging was the normality of retirement and why it was a positive goal for most older people. Only in the 1980s did gerontologists begin to realize that perhaps too much focus was being placed on preparing and encouraging people to retire. Today, later-life planning involves considering second or third careers and choices regarding the point at which one might stop working. We believe that the focus must shift to the importance of capable older people continuing to work. People not only may wish to work longer, they may have to. A recent survey of 12,600 Americans, undertaken by F. Thomas Juster on behalf of the National Institute on Aging, the University of Michigan, and the Alliance for Aging Research (Rich, 1993), showed that a significant proportion of the next generation of potential retirees had few resources on which to retire. The results indicated that, in the 1990s, 40 percent of working Americans aged 51 to 60 would have no pension income other than Social Security were they to retire. Twenty percent of all respondents had no assets (house, investments, or savings), 14 percent had no health insurance, and 20 percent were disabled. All of these individuals, regardless of their health and disability status, will feel the financial pressure to continue working. The Juster study also reported some positive trends. Most people in their fifties were healthy and many were in good shape economically. The median household income was $37,500, and median net assets, including home and cars, totaled $80,000. But substantial numbers of people in their fifties were not well off, especially among minority groups. While most people were better off financially than their counterparts of a few decades ago, they may not have been ready to face retirement. A logical conclusion from the survey findings is that many older people will continue to work because they will not have the resources to retire (Rich, 1993). Until the late 1980s, many people now aged from the forties to the mid-sixties felt that they would have a choice about working after the normal retirement age. This belief was based on the expectation of an expanding economy and a strong economic climate. Many middle-aged and older workers are now surprised by the prevalence of early buyouts, layoffs, and downsizing, even by successful companies. This places middle-aged and older workers in the position of having to be responsible for their own careers, maximizing the employment opportunities presented to them and competing with people of all ages in finding new

STERNS AND STERNS

employment. People will have to fight harder to remain in the work force longer. The present 50- and 60-year-olds were hired at a time when they could choose among jobs. They were a part of the work force when there was accelerated growth and numerous promotions. They had to deal with the slower promotions and salary increases of the 1980s but still expected that they would have control over how long they worked and when they exited the work force. At the peak of their careers, they now have much less control or no control at all. Employment benefits, especially retirement benefits, will also change in the future. Individuals may have to pay or eo-pay into pension and health benefit programs both before flOd after retirement. This will leave fewer discretionary resources in retirement than past retirees have experienced. As a result, baby boomers may need or desire to supplement their pension or benefits. Kenneth Dychtwald (1988) proposes that the baby boomers are more likely ''to do their own thing" and will be comfortable breaking the retirement norm. More cyclic lifestyles (multiple periods of training, work, and leisure) will continue to become more common. The increasing pressures of changing technology and the need for continuous training to remain competitive in the job market are the forces that will drive multiple-cycle careers (Stems, 1986). Older adults have many different reasons for staying longer in the work force. They want to earn money and have health insurance, and they seek intrinsic benefits as well, including developing new skills, using time productively, and feeling useful and needed. Work allows people to stay in touch with current developments; it structures older people's days and helps them retain a sense of doing something worthwhile. People who enjoy work will want to continue to maintain the social interactions and relationships they enjoyed with eo-workers, and they will want to continue to participate in meaningful activity. The work one does contributes to identity and a sense of self (Stems, Matheson, and Schwartz, 1990). An increasing concern for health and youthfulness may also contribute to longer career patterns. Being retired may conflict with a person's youthful image, leading him or her to postpone retirement. We can expect older workers who have expertise to seek additional training in their own or related disciplines and take on new challenges, such as consulting (Kelly, 1971). Many women, having entered the work force in midlife, may want to work longer for many of the reasons mentioned above. They may need to work longer to receive benefits in retirement. A majority of older adults are women,

Health and Employment Capability 13

Table 2.1. Employed Individuals 55 and Older

Industry Mining Construction Manufacturing Public Sales Finance Services Public administration

16 and Older

Women 55 Total 55 Percentage 55 Men 55 and Older and Older and Older and Older (in Thousands)

664 7,013 19,972 8,245 24,354 7,724 39,631

52 675 1,631 693 1,398 556 2,261

80 720 198 1,269 476 2,963

65 755 2,351 891 2,667 1,031 5,224

5,620

425

301

726

13

9.8% 10.8 11.8 10.8 11.0 13.3 13.2 12.9

Data from: Kutscher and Fullerton, 1990.

and 60 percent of women aged 45 to 60 are employed. Women's participation varies by industry (see table 2.1). It is expected that 75 percent of women will be in the work force by the year 2000. Women have become a major component of the work force and will become a larger component in the next decade. In terms of employment, prospects for the future depend on one's economic assumptions. Sar Levitan ( 1992) first describes a rosy future in which growth will be similar to that experienced during the 1950s and 1960s. He argues that world peace will bring greater economic stability and this growth wil11ead to

greater demand for tabor. Under these conditions the tabor force in the United States will grow 2 percent annually. American workers aged 65 and older will increase from 16 percent to 20 percent or more. Even if the economy continues to grow only moderately, 60 percent of Americans who are aged 65 and over and still employed will work in our two largest economic sectors, services and trades. Both are expected to grow more than other parts of the economy. Levitan also makes projections for a more pessimistic and, he feels, more likely future. Early retirement is slowing down and will become a thing of the past. For those now under age 45, Levitan argues, early retirement will not be possible. He anticipates a decline in new employment for older workers, but health care costs will keep people from retiring. The percentage of new workers entering the work force has expanded only half as much as in the previous 14 years (Mayrand, 1992). Because of labor

STERNS AND STERNS

supply restrictions, more older workers may be needed in the future. There are older people who might want these jobs, but too few desirable positions are available. William McNaught, Michael Barth, and Peter Henderson (1989) have raised the issue of where the future labor supply should be drawn from now that the work-force expansion may no longer be fueled by the baby-boom generation and women shifting into working roles. The 1991 Commonwealth Fund Productive Aging Survey, which drew on interviews with 2,999 older Americans, indicated that from 9 percent (75 and older) to 12 percent (65 to 74) of nonworking older adults were willing and able to work. Depending on assumptions made about the health of older Americans and acceptable working conditions, the survey results indicated that between 1.9 million and 5.4 million older adults are capable, available, and interested in working (see chapter 3). The 1991 Commonwealth Fund survey was conducted in order to understand the interest level of older adults and the circumstances they would be willing to work under. (See chapter 8 for a discussion of the methodology.) The survey examined daily activities, employment, and work attitudes of men and women over the age of 55. Twenty-seven percent of the respondents reported having a job for which they were paid. Those who were employed worked an average of 37.4 hours (median= 39.9). In order to determine if respondents were satisfied with the hours worked, they were also asked how many hours they would like to work. The average (29.5 hours) was considerably lower than actual hours worked (median= 34.0 hours); 22 percent of respondents wanted to work fewer than 15 hours per week while 29 percent wanted to work more than 40 hours. A majority of older adults seemed content to be retired and wanted to remain retired. Of the 72 percent of the sample who were not employed, 73 percent had not worked in six years. Unemployed individuals were asked if they would prefer to be working: 31 percent responded "yes" and 4 percent responded "not sure." The 31 percent who indicated that they would like to work were asked, "If a suitable job were available in your area, would you be able to work or would it not be possible for you to work?" Forty-six percent said that it would be possible. Fifty-one percent responded that it would not be possible, and 3 percent responded "not sure." The large percentage responding "not possible" may be due to health or caretaker responsibilities, or other competing activities. Of

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those willing and able to work, two-thirds were willing to work part-time and one-third wanted more than 35 hours of work. The 1991 Commonwealth Fund survey data imply that older adults who are working would like to continue to work, but work fewer hours per week. Most older adults who were not working said they would like to remain retired. However, approximately 14 percent ofnonworking older adults said they would like to return to work. Based on this percentage, of the 32 million older adults who are currently not in the work force, some 4.5 million are potential full- or parttime employees.

Do Organizations Want to Hire Older Workers? In the past, many employers have had negative impressions about older workers, believing them to be slow, undependable, unadaptive, accident-prone, costly, and unable to meet the physical and mental demands of work (Cahill and Salomone, 1987). But there is growing evidence that these attitudes are changing (Ferraro, 1990). Many human resource managers consider older individuals to be excellent workers (Dennis, 1989). However, older people bring with them the expectation of increased costs for salary and benefits. In the current economic climate, human resource managers are understandably concerned with cost containment and may look less favorably on current and new older workers. And negative stereotypes do remain. Older workers are often considered to be less flexible people who are unwilling to learn or change their ways. Some human resource managers subscribe to the notion that older workers have a different work style, which clashes with the work style of younger workers (Hochstein, 1992). In terms of ability, age is a poor predictor of both worker characteristics and performance (Humple and Lyons, 1983). A survey of executives conducted by Robert Half International indicated that "older employees are, by far, more conscientious and hard working than younger workers." The survey found, for example, that 84 percent of supervisors picked individuals under age 30 as stealing the most time by inattention to work; only 10 percent picked individuals over 45 as stealing the most time. While older workers are believed to have rich experience and to be more capable of making decisions-both positive qualities-they actually take longer and take fewer risks in decision making than younger managers (Humple and

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Lyons, 1983). Taking longer to make decisions and taking fewer risks may mean missing business opportunities, a potential negative (Streufert, Pogash, Piasecki, and Post, 1991). The new global economy and a renewed emphasis on current economic issues have placed new pressures on organizations and the people who work for them. Many of these pressures, in the form of company emphasis, are advantageous to both older workers and older consumers. For example, organizations increasingly emphasize consumer satisfaction and customer relations (Gronroos, 1990). Older workers are perceived to be more skilled than younger workers in interpersonal communication and in giving attention to customers. William McNaught and Michael Barth (1992) examined differences between older (over 50) and younger (under 50) employees at the Days Inns Reservation Center in Atlanta. Older workers spent more time talking on the telephone to callers seeking reservations but were more successful in booking reservations. Younger workers' booking rates increased substantially after their first six months, but a high turnover rate meant that few younger workers remained on the job for that length of time. Increased attention to customers resulted in improved sales, and the experiences of older workers appeared to contribute to their salesmanship. Another study, examining a building supply store chain in Britain, found older employees to be friendlier and more cooperative than younger workers (Hogarth and Barth, 1991). The kinds of customers perceived to make up the market also have changed (Leventhal, 1991). Compared to decades past, certain sectors of older people have more disposable income and command increasing attention from business. Older adults may prefer doing business with people their own age, providing expanded opportunities for older adults (Mature Market Report, 1988). Overall, employers have a contradictory view of the value of older people as workers. They are seen as being excellent, hard-working, reliable, and motivated workers by most employers today. At the same time, organizations are looking for ways to cut expenses and see older workers as potentially costly. Paying for retirement benefits, such as pensions and health-care plans, are among the concerns of human resource managers. Cutting older workers is viewed as a way of providing a short-term solution to reducing operating costs (Hochstein, 1992). However, older workers may more readily meet the business demands of the modern corporation. Older people may be interested in the flexibility of part-

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time and contract work following their main career. Such work is called contingent employment, and such jobs for older people are referred to as bridge jobs because they bridge the period between a person's major long-term work commitment and retirement. Contingent employment, according to Richard Bellous (1990), "may be beneficial to older workers, but there seem to be significant obstacles to their actually gaining such flexible bridge jobs" (p. 111).

Health Status, Physical Change, and Ability to Work Health is one of several variables affecting the ability of older persons to work. Historically, health status has been measured by mortality rates alone. No ongoing, valid, uniform measure of the nation's health level beyond mortality statistics has been available. The commonly used health indicators measure poor health, presence of disease, disability, or death, rather than good health. Therefore, with regard to extending the work life, the standard health indicators do not measure the extent to which people are able to work (Newquist, 1986). It is important to identify what aspects of health are central to measuring disability and its impact on work life. Disability is defined by its impact on the major activities one needs to perform; health may be defined in several ways, such as total well-being and absence of disease. Further, distinctions between chronic and acute disease and subjective feelings of sickness must be made clear. These distinctions suggest that disability or functional capacity is not directly tied to the presence of a disease or impairment (Newquist, 1986). One of the best reports on health and its implications for work life extension has been done by Deborah Newquist and Pauline Robinson (1983). On the basis of a comprehensive review of the literature on health, aging, and work and a synthesis of data on health and the older population, the authors concluded that older persons (over 65) had more health problems than middle.aged persons (45 to 64). However, there were no major differences in the nature of problems between the age groups. Age 65 was not found to be a point where dramatic changes in health patterns took place. Health problems increase gradually, not suddenly, across groups as age increases. While health problems are more frequently experienced by older adults, differences between old and young adults are small. The young-olds (65 to 74) are more like the middleaged (45 to 64) in their level of health than the old-olds (those 75 and over) (Newquist and Robinson, 1983).

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Newquist and Robinson reported that only 10 percent of the 45-and-older population said they were unable to work at a job or perform housework because of chronic conditions. Their data support the contention that people can work longer. Only 12 percent of people 62 to 64 reported that they were unable to work, with people 65 to 68 only slightly higher (12.7 percent). Even among the old-o1ds (75 and older), only 22 percent reported being unable to work. More recent estimates support the contention that older adults are able to work longer. Healthy People 2000 (a comprehensive national effort that involved 22 expert working groups, a consortium of almost 300 national organizations, all state health departments, the National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Public Health Service) reviewed the health status ofU.S. citizens and produced a comprehensive list of opportunities for national health promotion and disease prevention. The study found that 84 percent of Americans 45 and over (86 percent of the 55- to 61-year-olds, 84 percent of the 62- to 64-year-olds, 80 percent of the 65- to 68-year-olds, and 78 percent of the 69- to 74-year-olds) indicated that they were not limited in the amount or kind of major activities they could perform (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1990). Health may not be the primary determinant of whether someone can continue to work. Newquist and Robinson (1983) point to the need to focus on functional abilities: "Consideration of the health of the population from a work life per-

spective with its focus on supply, demand, productivity, costs, health maintenance, necessitates a shift from the ideal view of health to the interindividual view. Employment analysts need to be more concerned with the functional abilities than with ideal levels of health. It matters little from an employment perspective whether worker A has arthritis and worker B does not unless worker A feels unwell and risks health impairment through employment, performs poorly and/or costs the company more than worker B because of the arthritis" (p. 93). Much of the data in the past were collected only on men. Special sensitivity is needed in regard to health and work patterns of women and minority groups. They experience unique health patterns, different from the population in general. Women report more health problems than men, for example; the health status of older Hispanics and blacks is poorer than that of older whites; older blacks are especially disadvantaged in terms of health status (Newquist and Robinson, 1983; Sterns, Laier, and Dorsett, 1994). A national emphasis on including women and minorities in data bases will make better information available in the future.

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Also, older adults should not be treated as one homogeneous group. There is greater variability in the older population (age 65 and over) than in the younger population (under 65) in terms of limitations in work activities. Reporting older workers as a single group can distort the reality of health and aging. The result is that the younger old (64 to 75) are portrayed as less healthy than they actually are because means are often reported. Many individuals in this group may have good health (Newquist, 1986). Employed adult workers over 65 can be presumed to be among the healthiest individuals in their age group. One measure available for comparing working people over 65 with working people 55 to 64 is the number of days lost from work because of illness. Individuals over 65 who were working have reported fewer days lost from work because of illness than individuals 45 to 64 (Robinson, 1986). But health and functioning do not inevitably decline in the middle and later working years. In chapter 3, Michael C. Barth, William McNaught, and Philip Rizzi summarize a number of studies on aging, health, and work. The results of the 1991 Commonwealth Fund survey support the notion that a majority of older working people (55 to 74) are in excellent or very good health.

Physical Capacity and Aging Although there is considerable variation among individuals, physical capacity starts to decline in middle age. Physical capacity, or performance, refers to outcomes of coordinated activity among major components of the locomotor system involved in carrying out external work and/or bodily motion (Stones and Kozma, 1985). Significant physical performance decrements with age have been observed in virtually every index of physical activity (Davies and Sparrow, 1985; Stones and Kozma, 1985). Perceptual speed (psychomotor speed), for example, starts to show change at ages 20 to 30. Basal oxygen consumption starts to decline in an almost linear pattern across the lifespan (Svanborg, 1984). Both these changes can affect physical performance. Many other physical functions show a relationship between functional performance and chronological age that implies at least four phases (Svanborg, 1984). In the first, one develops and improves physical performance. Such biomedical markers as strength, lung capacity, and coordination all increase. In the second phase, physical performance remains constant or declines only slightly.

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This period lasts through adulthood and can be lengthened with regular exercise and a healthy diet. The third phase is characterized by a functional decline, typically 1 percent per year (Svanborg, 1984). Finally, a tenninal phase begins when the rate of appearance of the manifestations of aging accelerates, vitality declines, and significant health problems occur. Each person will experience these phases at a different age. There is often an assumed relationship between aging and physical impairment. Longitudinal studies, however, have demonstrated that 30-40 percent of individuals at age 70 are healthy and lack symptoms of any definable disorder, and when a disorder is present it may cause only a slight impairment and no meaningful loss of function (Svanborg, 1984). Declines in physical capacity must be viewed on an individual basis and examined in terms of employment only in the context of interference with the essential functions of the job. Some jobs place a heavier demand on physical performance than others; employers in these situations should be sensitive to age changes as they relate to physical ability. D. Roy Davies and Paul Sparrow (1985), in a review of the literature, found that for jobs that demand heavy use of motor skills and heavy expenditures of energy, workers showed, on average, large decrements in performance with age. In semiskilled and skilled occupations, age effects were more pronounced than, for example, in clerical or sales positions, where much smaller

changes were found. A classic study by the U.S. Department of Labor (Greenburg, 1960) reviewed data from 26 companies producing furniture or footwear. It was found that productivity declined, on average, by 17 percent for workers over 64 years of age, compared to the performance of 35-44-year-olds. The study did not find a reduction in the productivity of office workers by age. In many cases, the performance of the oldest groups was equal or superior to the performance of the youngest groups. Many of these analyses were based on earlier cohorts of older adults and need to be replicated with present cohorts. According to Albert Kozma and M. J. Stones (1990), two factors seem to account for the minor changes in job performance across age groups shown in production studies. Most of the job activities fit what can be called "habitual performance," a level of performance that is moderately paced and does not require above-normal energy expenditure. Such jobs do not really test the person's physical capacity. Another aspect is that changes in physical ability can be compensated for by the increase in skills and strategy that develops over time.

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As workers age, the number of transfers from physically demanding positions to those that require less physical strength increases. As a result, older adults are more likely to work at less physically demanding jobs. Thus, one of the best indicators of the physical demands of a job may be the percentage of older adults who hold the job. Workplace interventions on behalf of older people offer many benefits for business in terms of reducing health hazards, promoting good health, assessing change, providing alternate working arrangements, redesigning jobs, and retraining. Reducing work hazards and promoting health-related behaviors in the work environment may also reduce health decrements associated with aging. The workplace is a reasonable site for interventions because of the high proportion of time people spend at work. In addition, workplace interventions to reduce the impact of age-related health declines in job performance may be accomplished via assessment (which may reveal reduced capabilities), workplace accommodations, and retraining. New efforts to overcome age-related declines in health and physical capacity require increases in understanding by the business sector of the relationship between health and work. Efforts in industrial medicine are also important, for example, those to reduce the impact of carcinogens in the workplace. And in order to facilitate future research, efforts to carry out both short-term and long-term data collection on health and job performance are required.

Older Workers and the Americans with Disabilities Act Many of the ailments associated with older adults are now classified as disabilities. Disabilities are not necessarily a result of normal aging. They are usually a result of genetics, accidents, or disease. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 offers protection to older adults in addition to that offered by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The ADA defines a disability as any physiological disorder or condition, cosmetic disfigurement, or anatomical loss affecting one or more of the following body systems: neurological, musculoskeletal, special sense organs, respiratory, and cardiovascular; also included are infectious and contagious diseases. The act requires that an employer make reasonable accommodations in administering employment tests to eligible applicants or employees with disabling impairments in sensory, manual, or speaking skills. Tests must be conducted in a manner that does not require the

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use of the impaired skill. Reasonable accommodation may be acceptable in one instance but not in another. For example, in an office with several secretaries and an administrative assistant, marginal functions such as filing (involving lifting and bending) can be assigned to one able person. But in an office with only one person, all tasks are essential, and the lone employee may be expected to perform them all. Very specific analysis must now be used to determine the essential skills, required experience, and educational level for work positions so that applicants are tested only for the skills required. In addition, a medical exam cannot be required prior to hiring the individual. These changes should aid older adults as well as the disabled. If an employer does not select the most qualified applicant, this is considered to be discrimination, and the applicant has grounds to pursue litigation. An employer does not have to alter the standards or criteria used to hire an individual for a job. An employer is not obliged to hire a disabled person, only the most qualified person for the essential functions of the job. If two or three candidates are essentially equally qualified and one is disabled, then the disabled person can be chosen for affirmative action reasons.

It is expected that ADA will provide additional protection for older adults, especially those returning to work from illnesses such as a heart attack or stroke. Under the law, the employee has demonstrated qualification by holding the position prior to the illness and must be allowed to return to work, even if impaired, if he or she can perform the essential functions of the position with reasonable accommodation (Sterns and Barrett, 1992). When older adults are impaired by a disability, they should seek the support necessary under the law.

Cognitive Changes and the Ability to Work More than twenty-five years of gerontological research has provided important information regarding cognitive ability and aging. Major longitudinal studies (Schaie, 1985) have shown that most individuals maintain stable intellectual functioning well into their seventies and beyond. Unless there is a major health problem, such as a disease, stroke, or head injury, most people remain at the same level of intellectual ability. Perception is a cognitive process that is dependent on a number of physical senses. There are numerous changes with age in vision, hearing, taste, smell, and

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somesthetic senses. Most visual and auditory functions decrease on average with age, and there are individual differences in the degree to which persons experience deficits in these and other senses. Although many age-related deficits have been identified, close to 90 percent of perceptual functioning remains intact. Information processing may be affected by aging processes. In cases where adults must divide their attention or process complex information, laboratory studies have shown that performance goes down with age (Streufert et al., 1991). These findings may affect work behavior, but their relevance is limited until the relationship is more thoroughly studied using specific job tasks. This has very rarely been done. Speed and efficiency of processing have been extensively studied with regard to aging. John Cerella (1990) argues that older adults (60 and older) perform about 1.43 times more slowly in general than adults aged 20 to 30. Lynn Hasher and Rose Zacks (1988) found that older adults experience problems processing information when it is presented at a fast pace, when contextual cues are not provided, and when the individual cannot consider competing information provided simultaneously. However, in most job situations, which do not involve maximal levels of performance, workers can perform satisfactorily (Hayslip and Panek, 1993). For many work-related cognitive abilities, such as working memory, there are no age variations across the years (Warr, 1994). Older adults' learning strategies, such as memorization, may not be well practiced because they may not have had the opportunity to be involved in learning new information on a regular basis through courses or training. When older adults are given the opportunity to engage in continuous activity in a particular area, however, age may be irrelevant. Most practicing experts in a specific field, such as physicians, college professors, or accountants, maintain their learning efficiency in that field over most, if not all, of their life span (Stems and Doverspike, 1989). Environmental, biomedical, cognitive, and psychological factors can influence learning and memory. Intelligence, education level, motivation, familiarity with material, cognitive and learning style, demands of a boring task, rate of information presentation, and inter- and intra-task interference can all affect learning efficiency. The health of the learner can also influence these processes. Older adults can learn as well as younger individuals, but it will probably take them more time. People should be able to continue to perform in familiar job

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roles, and can be trained for new ones. The main issue for the individual worker is how to keep current and competitive. A major way is to take advantage of relevant training both within and outside one's current employment situation (Sterns and Doverspike, 1989). Research on crystallized and fluid intelligence has enriched our understanding of the differential changes that may be taking place in individuals as they age (Willis, 1985). Some older workers may show gains in crystallized abilities-acquiring information, knowledge, job-relevant skills, and expertise. They may, at the same time, show a stabilization or decline in fluid abilities-the more basic perceptual performance aspects of intelligence, such as inductive reasoning and the solving of novel problems. An employer must determine the relevance of changes in fluid and crystallized intelligence to a particular job. One of the biggest issues for future research is how closely specific cognitive attributes must be tied to actual work situations and performance. Many developmental changes may be irrelevant to work situations. The prospective employer must first understand what is required in a particular job situation and then find out whether the person possesses (or can learn) the necessary level of perception, information processing, learning, memory, and intelligence as well as the necessary level of skills for the job (Avolio, Barrett, and Sterns, 1984;

Sterns and Alexander, 1987).

Attitudes and Desire to Work Over the past two decades, employees' attitudes toward working have become increasingly more important to organizations in their efforts to predict worker behavior (Warr, 1994). General attitudes about work contribute to a desire to continue to work and to maintain the skills required to excel. The work environment itself also influences employees' attitudes about their job performance and whether they want to continue to work. The desire to continue working in an organization has been researched under the topic of organizational commitment. John Meyer and Natalie Allen (1984) distinguish between two dimensions of organizational commitment that affect work attitudes in different ways. The first, continuance commitment, is the employee's perceived cost of leaving or a perceived lack of alternatives to make up for investments in the benefits of the current job. Individuals remain at work

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because they are not willing to risk loss of salary, health benefits, or pension investment. This aspect of organizational commitment is especially relevant to older adults. As workers increase their tenure with an organization, they may feel increasing continuance commitment because they have established a home and friendships in the area, have become specialized in a skill that they feel cannot be transferred, or believe that they could not get the same salary or benefits if they moved to a new organization. Affective commitment, the second dimension of organizational commitment, refers to the employee's affective, or emotional, orientation to the organization. Affective commitment is concerned with the individual's interest in the work and loyalty to the organization and its goals. This emotional tie to the organization motivates them to remain, not because they cannot afford to leave, but because they feel a sense of contribution and growth by staying with the organization. Other things being equal, an organization that encourages maintaining and improving the skills required to excel at one's job, provides challenging work, and offers opportunities to inject new ideas will not only be more likely to stay ahead of competitors but will also reduce turnover and retain more productive employees. An organization can measure the success of its efforts to improve the work environment by examining organization-based self-esteem (Pierce, Gardner, Cummings, and Dunham, 1989). Organization-based self-esteem is measured by the degree to which organization members believe they are valuable, worthwhile, and effectual employees (Pierce et al., 1989). Nancy Matheson (1991)

studied the influence of organization-based self-esteem on job satisfaction and commitment. She divided the employees in a northeastern investment company into three groups (aged 20-35, aged 36-50, and aged 51 and older) and collected attitudinal information using a questionnaire and objective measures of absenteeism and turnover. She found that organizational satisfaction, continuance commitment, and global self-esteem (a measure of a person's overall perceived self-worth) increased with age. However, after controlling for job and organizational tenure, two variables that have been found to be related to age, she found that only global self-esteem was significantly associated with age. Employees over age 50 had significantly higher global self-esteem than did younger age groups. Those who perceived that they were valuable as organizational members were more satisfied with their jobs and the organization, were committed to the organization in terms of both loyalty and their career invest-

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ment (for example, position, salary, seniority, and pension), and were less likely to leave. Older adults bring experience and skills to any job. They have had a lifetime of communicating, overcoming hardships, solving problems, and acquiring knowledge. They have had years of integrating their knowledge with practical experience so as to develop efficient methods of accomplishing their work. When new techniques arise, open-minded older workers are often the best source to determine how successful new ideas will be and how best to implement them. Evidence is mounting that the intrinsic rewards of work-satisfaction, relationships with eo-workers, and a sense of participating in meaningful activitybecome more important as an individual ages. The abolishment of the mandatory retirement age allows working older adults to continue to participate in these benefits until they feel that they have the financial resources and personal network outside the workplace to retire (Brady et al., 1989). Contemporary research has established that financial incentives influence retirement behavior, although the relative importance of economic factors compared to affective and social factors is not known (Ruhm, 1990). There is considerable disagreement about the effect of economic factors (Quinn and Burkhauser, 1990). (For an extensive discussion on retirement, see chapter 11.)

Does Age Aft'ect Health and Capacity? Only a small percentage of jobs today depend on physical strength and place major demands on the body. The increase in computers, machines, robotics, and other forms of automation have made a large number of physically demanding jobs no longer necessary. Most jobs require cognition and experience-qualities that can be presumed only to increase with age-and wisdom may be an important factor in many managerial and decision-making roles. The functional-age perspective, based on definitions that are sensitive to biological and psychological change, was developed to address the question of links between age and health, and capability (Birren and Birren, 1990; Salthouse, 1986). Functional age is an attractive index because it appears to be indicative of a person's performance capacity regardless of his or her chronological age, but it is not. The danger in this approach is that measuring physical and psychological ability out of context may overlook the compensatory mechanisms that allow workers to continue to perform satisfactorily.

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From a functional-age perspective, health can impact on a person's physical and psychological capabilities. Bruce Avolio, Gerald Barrett, and Harvey Stems (1984), using an approach based on job-analysis techniques, assessed intrinsic attributes directly related to performance on the job, irrespective of physical health status. Information obtained from the analysis of specific jobs was used to establish criterion performance levels. Above the criterion level, an individual's performance on the job is expected to be satisfactory. Tests are then developed that significantly correlate with the job's critical abilities. Cutoff scores are developed and validated for the established criterion performance levels. Repeated assessments of individuals track their performance levels over time and determine when substantial decreases in capacity have occurred. A word processor who develops arthritis would not be allowed to continue the job when his or her performance dropped below criterion levels. Arthritis would affect a switchboard operator less dramatically. This method yields performance appraisals that are job-related and not directly age-related. By considering a changing worker across the life span in a changing workplace environment, human-factors research seeks to understand age-related changes and how to design optimal environments, equipment, software, and specific tools (Chamess and Bosman, 1990; Clark, Czaja, and Weber, 1990; Czaja, 1990; Garg, 1991; Winn, 1991). A major emphasis is placed on how to accommodate disabilities. In order to create appropriate equipment and working conditions, the tasks and demands of the job need to be understood. Most organizations have made some effort to develop job descriptions, at least for use in compensation decisions. But job descriptions, if accurate and sufficiently detailed, are also useful for determining the essential and marginal functions of a position. Job descriptions will increasingly contain this level of detail as organizations take steps to comply with the requirements of the ADA. The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (fourth edition, U.S. Department of Labor, 1991) contains information on 12,741 occupational titles and allows comparison with companies' own task requirements. A companion publication, Selected Characteristics of Occupations, gives average performance values for these job-title designations. Analyses of these documents (Capco, 1990) provide an overview of current workplace demands, most of which are not affected by the declines associated with age. More than 60 percent of all jobs described have limited physical demands (for example, lifting the equivalent of less than 20

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pounds). Fewer than 10 percent of all jobs require physical strength capabilities equivalent to lifting 100 pounds or carrying frequently 50 pounds or more. More important, many of these work demands would be considered marginal functions. For instance, not all workers on a construction site must be capable of carrying heavy loads. An individual may continue to perform as a bricklayer (lifting a few pounds) even if he or she is not able to move a wheelbarrow full of mortar or bricks. According to Joseph Spoonster (1992), ''The most significant factor, in terms of occupational limitations, is impairments which drastically diminish the full range of motion and sensation in the upper extremities. Over 89 percent of all jobs require the ability to reach, handle, finger, and feel" (p. 8). Educational and cognitive requirements are equally limited for most jobs. Over 82 percent of all jobs require education roughly equivalent to no more than the seventh- or eighth-grade level. Almost 93 percent of jobs have educational requirements that can be met with the equivalent of a high school diploma or even less (Capco, 1990). Even when declines in strength or cognitive speed occur, they will have minimal impact on an individual's ability to continue to work. Even if a person's occupation currently demands maximal physical performance, this may be only a marginal function of the job. In the event that a person is no longer capable of handling such demanding tasks, he or she may be qualified for other jobs with the same employer.

Work Issues in the Twenty-First Century A major focus in the 1980s was the elimination of mandatory retirement in the United States with careful examination of the age-60 rule for airline pilots and bona fide occupational qualifications for police officers and firefighters. The age-60 retirement rule for pilots has not changed. The mandatory retirement of police officers, firefighters, and tenured college and university faculty, however, was eliminated at the end of 1993. (It is possible that action may be taken by Congress to reinstate certain restrictions.) Recent knowledge regarding age changes has affirmed the ability of older people to perform effectively as, for example, flight engineers, bus drivers, and executives. The courts and Congress affirmed that screening, testing, and appraising performance are the fairest mechanisms for determining who should work at a certain job and who should not. Tests, however, must be relevant to the job, reliable, and valid across age

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groups. As the employee ages, he or she may experience changes in health and physical status and yet still meet the job qualification criteria. A major concern is the work environment and how productivity and safety can be maintained and enhanced for older workers. If work becomes more difficult or less satisfying as people age, job tasks may have to be modified. There is a need to understand the relationship of aging and performance in the work force, including accident rates, disability, and turnover, as well as grievances and lack of productivity (Czaja, 1990). Recent concerns about human-factors guidelines for older adults and people with disabilities have been formalized into design guidelines for the work environment (Denno, Isle, Ju, Koch, et al., 1992). Important research concerns for the future include how occupational demands, hazards of the workplace, and physical frailty are related, as well as a life-span approach to cumulative trauma disorders in various parts of the body and the origins and remediation of musculoskeletal problems. As Francis J. Winn, Jr. (1991), points out, we need to target interventions and prevention strategies at the beginning of a career, not at the end, to provide a safe, healthy work environment throughout a person's working life.

Conclusion Individuals may experience age-related declines in health and capability as they grow older, but these changes do not mean that they cannot perform satisfactorily in a job role. Age is not a good predictor of who can perform a job successfully. Whether changes in physical abilities are relevant to job performance depends on the characteristics of the job and the level of performance needed to be successful. Older people maintain intelligence and learning abilities into late life. While declines in information processing and attention have been found in laboratory studies, these may not directly translate to actual work settings. A careful task analysis of a job will reveal the requisite skills and the minimal levels of performance required for specific jobs. Most jobs do not require maxima1 mental or physical performance and can be performed by healthy, moderately educated adults regardless of their age. In the future, more older adults will be active and healthy, and we can expect them to have the capacity to work for as long as they choose. Physical and mental changes that occur with age can be sensitively accom-

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modated through careful job design and restructuring of the work environment. The ADA requires that reasonable accommodations be made so that a disabled worker, young or old, can perform his or her job. Training can also enhance older workers' ability to perform in unfamiliar job situations. With normal aging and maintenance of skills, older workers can continue to work and compete with the rest of the work force. Future work opportunities will be more cognitive and less physical. Most jobs will be well within the range of older adults' skills and abilities. Capable, healthy, older adults can perform most jobs with great success. Evidence indicates that experience and knowledge make older workers competitive with workers of all ages. Nevertheless, throughout their work life, workers will need to maintain and update their skills in order to remain competitive. They will need to be responsible for their own careers and perhaps their pension and health benefits. One of the most important determinants of remaining in the work force is feeling valued, appreciated, and respected within the company. Evidence suggests that at age 50 extrinsic factors (such as financial priorities) tend to take precedence in an individual's attitude toward continuing to work, whereas intrinsic values become more central after age 60 (Brady, Fortinsky, Norland, and Eichar, 1989). Employers are seeing older workers in a more positive light, but at present their attitudes are decidedly mixed. Cost containment, a prominent concern today, impacts negatively on older workers' prospects of being retained or hired. However, future policies on retirement and health care and a better understanding of the cost-benefit ratio associated with employing older workers should improve opportunities for older workers. Opportunities for older workers usually reflect the work opportunities for all workers. With economic downturns, they may be the first to be negatively affected (Sterns, Matheson, and Schwartz, 1990), yet in times of economic expansion, older workers may have increased opportunity.

References Americans with disabilities act of 1990 (P.L. 101-336), 42, U.S.C. 12101. Avolio, B. J., Barrett, G. V., and Stems, H. L. (1984). Alternatives to age for assessing occupational performance capacity. Experimental Aging Research, 10, 101-105.

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Bellous, R. S. (1990). Flexible employment: The employers' point of view. In P. B. Doeringer (Ed.), Bridges to retirement (pp. 111-128). lthaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Birren, J. E., and Birren, B. A. (1990). The concepts, models and history of the psychology of aging. In J. E. Birren and K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging (3d. ed., pp. 3-20). San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press. Brady, E. M., Fortinsky, R. H., Norland, S., and Eichar, D. (1989). Predictors of success among older workers in new jobs. Final report. Human Services Development Institute, University of Southern Maine. Cahill, M., and Salomone, P. R. (1987). Career counseling for work life extension: Integrating the older worker into the labor force. Career Development Quarterly, 35 (3), 188-196. Capco. (1990). The placement problem solver pocket guide. Spokane, Wash.: Capability Corporation. Cerella, J. (1990). Aging and information-processing rate. InJ. E. Birren and K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging (3d. ed., pp. 201-221). San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press. Chamess, N., and Bosman, E. A. (1990). Human factors and design for older adults. In J. E. Birren and K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology ofaging (3d. ed., pp. 446-461). San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press. Clark, M. C., Czaja, S. J., and Weber, R. A. (1990). Older adults and daily living task profiles. Human Factors, 32, 537-549. Czaja, S. J. (1990). Special issue preface. Human Factors, 32, 501-507. Davies, D. R., and Sparrow, P. R. (1985). Age and work behavior. In N. Chamess (Ed.), Aging and human performance (pp. 293-332). Chichester, England: John Wiley and Sons. Dennis, H. (1988). Fourteen steps in maintaining an aging work force. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books. Denno, S., Isle, B. A., Ju, G., Koch, C. G., Metz, R., Permer, R., Wang, L., and Ward, J. (1992). Human factors design guidelines for the elderly and people with disabilities. Minneapolis: Honeywell. Dychtwald, K., and Flower, J. (1989). Age wave: The challenges and opportunities of an aging America. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher. Ferraro, K. F. Sociology of aging: The micro-macro link. In K. F. Ferraro (Ed.), Gerontology: Perspectives and issues (pp. 110-123). New York: Springer. Garg, A. (1991). Ergonomics and the older worker: An overview. Experimental Aging Research, 17, 143-156. Greenburg, L. (1960). Productivity of older workers. The Gerontologist, 1, 33-41.

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Gronroos, C. (1990). Service management and marketing: Managing the moments of truth in service competition. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books. Hasher, L., and Zacks, R. T. (1988). Working memory, comprehension, and aging: A review and a new view. In G. H. Bower (Ed. ), The psychology of learning and motivation (vol. 22, pp. 193-225). New York: Academic Press. Hayslip, B., and Panek, P. E.(1993 ). Adult development and aging. New York, N. Y.: HarperCollins. Hochstein, M. (1992). Overview. Textbook Authors Conference Presentations. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Retired Persons. Hogarth, T., and Barth, M. C. (1991). Costs and benefits of hiring older workers: A case study ofB&Q. International Journal of Manpower, 12, 5-17. Rumple, C. S., and Lyons, M. (1983). Management and the older worliforce. New York: American Management Association. Kelly, H. H. (1971). Attribution and social interaction. Morristown, N.J.: General Learning Press. Kozma, A., and Stones, M. J. ( 1990). Decrements in habitual and maximal physical performance with age. In M. Perlmutter (Ed.), Late life potential (pp. 1-23). Washington, D.C.: Gerontological Society of America. Kutscher, R. E., and Fullerton, H. N., Jr. (1990). The aging labor force. In I. Bluestone, R. J. Montgomery, and J. D. Owen (Eds.), The aging of the American work force (pp. 37-54). Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Leventhal, R. (1991). The aging consumer: What's all the fuss about anyway? Journal of Consumer Marketing, 8, 29-34. Levitan, S. (1992). The status of older workers in the 1990s. Textbook Authors Conference Presentations. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Retired Persons. Matheson, N. S. (1991). The influence of organizational-based self-esteem on satisfaction and commitment: An analysis of age differences. Ph.D. diss. University of Akron. Mature Market Report (1988). Customers describe service. Mature Market Report, 2, 11. Mayrand, P. (1992). Older workers: A problem or the solution? Textbook Authors Conference Presentations. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Retired Persons. McNaught, W., and Barth, M. C. (1992). Are older workers "good buys"? A case study of Days Inns of America. Sloan Management Review, 33, 53-63. McNaught, W., Barth, M. C., and Henderson, P. H. (1989). The human resource potential of older Americans. Human Resource Management, 28, 47-64. Meyer, J. P., and Alien, N. J. (1984). Testing the "side-bet theory" of organiza-

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tional commitment: Some methodological considerations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69, 372-378. Newquist, D. D. (1986). Toward assessing health and functional capacity for policy development on work-life extension. In J. E. Birren, P. K. Robinson, and J. E. Livingston (Eds.), Age, health, and employment (pp. 27-44). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Newquist, D. D., and Robinson, P. K. (1983). Health and extended worklife. Center on Employment and Retirement. Los Angeles: University of Southern California, Andrus Gerontology Center. Pierce, J. L., Gardner, D. G., Cummings, L. L., and Dunham, R. B. (1989). Organization-based self-esteem: Construct definition measurement and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 32, 622--648. Quinn, J. F., and Burkhauser, R. V. (1990). Work and retirement. In R. H. Binstock and L. K. George (Eds.), Aging and the social sciences (pp. 308-327). San Diego: Academic Press. Rich, S. (1993). A grim outlook for retirement. Akron Beacon Journal, June 13, p. A12. Robinson, P. K. (1986). Age, health, and job performance. In J. E. Birren, P. K. Robinson, and J. E. Livingston (Eds. ), Age, health, and employment (pp. 63-77). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Ruhm, C. J. (1990). Determinants of the timing of retirement. In P. B. Doeringer, ed., Bridges to retirement (pp. 23-32). Ithaca, N.Y.: Comell University Press. Salthouse, T. A. (1986). Functional age: Examination of a concept. In J. E. Birren, P. K. Robinson, and J. E. Livingston (Eds.), Age, health, and employment (pp. 78-91). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Schaie, W. (1985). Intellectual development in adulthood. In J. E. Birren and K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology ofaging (2d. ed., pp. 291-310). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Sonnenfeld, J. (1988). Continued work contributions in late career. In H. Dennis (Ed.), Fourteen steps in managing and aging workforce (pp. 191-214). Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books. Spoonster, J. R. (1992). The interaction of health and disability in the workplace: Assessing occupational performance capacities. A paper presented before the workers' compensation symposium, Miami Valley Hospital, Dayton, Ohio, August 14. Stems, H. L. (1986). Training and retraining adult and older adult workers. In J. E. Birren, P. K. Robinson, and J. E. Livingston (Eds. ), Age, health, and employment (pp. 99-113). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

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Stems, H. L., and Alexander, R. A. (1987). Industrial gerontology. In G. Maddox (Ed.), The encyclopedia of aging (pp. 349-351 ). New York: Springer. Stems, H. L., and Barrett, G. V. (1992). Work (paid employment) and aging. Paper presented at the National Institute of Aging Workshop "Applied Gerontology Research: Setting a Future Agenda," August 12-13. Bethesda, Md.: Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute on Aging. Stems, H. L., and Doverspike, D. (1989). Aging and the training and learning process in organizations. In I. Goldstein and R. Katzel (Eds.), Training and development in work organizations (pp. 229-332). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Stems, H. L., Laier, M. P., and Dorsett, J. G. (1994). Work and retirement. In B. R. Bonder and M. B. Wagner (Eds.), Functional performance in older adults (pp. 148-164). Philadelphia: F. A. Davis. Stems, H. L., Matheson, N. K., and Schwartz, L. S. (1990). Work and retirement. In K. Ferraro (Ed.), Gerontology: Perspectives and issues (pp. 163-178). New York: Springer. Streufert, S., Pogash, R., Piasecki, M., and Post, G. M. (1991). Age and management team performance. Psychology and Aging, 5, 551-559. Stones, M. J., and Kozma, A. (1985). Physical performance. In N. Charness (Ed.), Aging and human performance (pp. 261-291). Chichester, England: John Wiley and Sons. Svanborg, A. (1984). Ecology, aging and health in a medical perspective. In P. K. Robinson, J. Livingston, and J. E. Birren (Eds.), Aging and technological advances (pp. 159-168). New York: Plenum Press. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1990). Healthy people 2000. DHHS Pub. no. (PHS) 91-50213. U.S. Department of Labor. (1991 ). Dictionary of occupational titles (4th Edition, revised). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Warr, P. (1994 ). Age and employment. In M. Dunnette, L. Hough, and H. Triandis (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (vol. 4, pp. 485-550). Palo Alto, Calif.: Consulting Psychologists Press. Willis, S. L. (1985). Toward an educational psychology of the older adult learner: Intellectual and cognitive bases. In J. E. Birren and K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging (2d. ed., pp. 818-847). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Winn, F. J. (1991). Preface for special issue on ergonomics and the older worker. Experimental Aging Research, 17, 139-141.

CHAPTER THREE

Older Americans As Workers MICHAEL C. BARTH, WILLIAM MCNAUGHT, AND PHILIP RIZZI

No assessment of the productive engagement of older Americans can ignore the significant work behavior and work interest among those aged 55 and older. Despite the general trend of declining labor-force participation among older people over the past 40 years (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS], 1989; 1989-93), work continues to be a central feature of many older people's daily lives. Employment provides income, an outlet for creative energy and the desire to contribute meaningfully to society, and a source of personal satisfaction. In addition, whether or not older people work may affect their demand for government services as well as the national rate of savings.l Although 14.3 million Americans aged 55 and older currently work, our research indicates that older people are underutilized as workers in several ways. They are not provided with the same opportunities for training, promotion, and pay increases as are younger workers. Further, despite the preference of many older workers for a gradual slowing down of their careers, during which they are allowed to assume less responsible positions or work fewer hours, most jobs require full-time work right up to the day of retirement. As a result, a significant percentage of older workers retire before they wish to leave the labor force 1. The effect of work on the demand for Social Security and savings is complex. Most provisions of the Social Security system, such as the retirement earnings test and the reduction in benefits for early retirement, are actuarially fair or are being gradually adjusted to be fair and therefore should not influence decisions about work and retirement. Nevertheless, features of the Social Security system, in particular the retirement earnings test, do appear to reduce the number of hours older people work, though only slightly.

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or are forced to switch to more flexible but often lower-paying "bridge jobs" as a stepping-stone to full retirement (Ruhm, 1991).2 Providing full opportunity for older Americans to remain productive workers will require changes in corporate and governmental policies. And, as the aging of American society becomes more pronounced over the next twenty years, the potential cost of ignoring or underutilizing this important segment of the labor force will be daunting. To position the U.S. economy to take advantage of this demographic trend requires moving toward a workplace that provides equal opportunities for all workers and better harnesses older people's expressed desire for paid employment. Government policies can encourage older workers to remain in the labor force and can make them more appealing as employees, but the most important changes must occur within individual companies as they reevaluate how they structure work and treat older workers. In this chapter, we document older Americans' paid work contribution based on the 1991 Commonwealth Fund Productive Aging Survey (Louis Harris and Associates, 1992) and present evidence of the productivity of older workers. Next, we describe how older workers are underutilized due to their inability to adjust the hours they work and extend their careers. We then address the potential effects of the aging of the labor force and of the anticipated changes in the U.S. economy on the future behavior of and employment opportunities for older workers. Finally, we outline the importance of corporate and governmental policies in creating or limiting employment opportunities for older people and recommend policy changes so that the nation's older workers can be better utilized.

Older People in the Work Force In 1990, people aged 55 and older comprised 27 percent of the working-age population (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1990) and 12 percent of the labor force (BLS, 1989). Despite the long-term decline and recent leveling off oflabor-force 2. Experts do not agree on a precise definition for the term bridge job. Ruhm (1991) defines it as any job held after the career job, which is defined as the job of longest tenure. A more useful definition (Hurd, 1993) may be any new job held for several years before complete withdrawal from the labor force. Retired older people wishing to return to the tabor force have trouble finding jobs that offer the flexibility they desire, which we believe to be one explanation for the large number of older people who are willing and able to work but who currently do not have a job.

Older Americans As Workers 37

Table 3.1. Work Behavior of Older Americans (Estimated) Aged 55 to 64 Aged 65 to 74

Aged 75 and Older

Men working Working full-time Women working Working full-time

0.2 million (4%) 0% 0.3 million (4%) 23%

5.7 million (57%) 89% 5.1 million (45%) 68%

1.6 million (20%) 50% 1.4 million (14%) 30%

Source: Data from the Commonwealth Fund Productive Aging Survey (Louis Harris and Associates, 1992).

participation rates for men aged 55-64 (BLS, 1989; 1989-93), according to the 1991 Commonwealth Fund Productive Aging Survey work is still the norm for men in this age group, and nearly nine of ten working men are employed fulltime (see table 3.1). The labor-force participation rate {or men falls off significantly at age 65, the age traditionally associated with retirement. Only one in five men aged 65-74 works in a paid job, and, beyond age 75, such work for men is quite rare. The number of working hours for men drops off in a comparable manner. Only half of the working men aged 65-74 worked full-time, and virtually none of the working men aged 75 and older had a full-time job. Except for those aged 75 and older, women are less likely than men to have a paying job, and women who work generally work fewer hours than men. Nearly half of the women aged 55-64 work, two thirds of them full-time. The labor-force participation rate of women aged 65-74 is only 14 percent, corresponding to 1.4 million working women. Women aged 75 and older participate in the labor force at the same rate as men, but because there are considerably more women in this age group, women comprise nearly two-thirds of the 75and-older working population. Moreover, nearly one in four of these working women aged 75 and older holds a full-titne job. A likely explanation is the well-documented problem of poverty among older women, especially widows. In 1989, nearly one in five women aged 75 and older had an income below the poverty level. These women frequently have no pension of their own and, at very advanced ages, often exist on Social Security benefits, whatever life savings have not already been spent, and modest pension survivor benefits that have been eroded by inflation. As a result, many must continue working or reenter the labor force after age 65. Further, these women typically lack recent work experience, a

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strong work history, and highly marketable skills, and thus tend to find workif they find it at all-in low-paying jobs. Segregation into low-paying fields, in turn, requires full-time work in order to earn a reasonable income.3 Poverty among older women is particularly acute for older minority women: more than 60 percent of older black women living alone have incomes below the poverty level (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1990).

Productive Contributions of Older Workers Corporate Assessments of Older Workers Older workers are an important segment of the labor force not only because of their numbers but because of their unique qualities. Older workers are consistently rated highly on such key job performance and productivity attributes as reliability, loyalty, lack of turnover, lack of absenteeism, and job skills (AARP, 1989).4 In a survey of 406 human resource executives at large organizations (Louis Harris and Associates, 1991 ), 57 percent reported that older workers had better work attitudes than younger workers. These executives also found older workers superior to the average worker on turnover (76 percent reported that older workers had less turnover than younger workers), absenteeism (66 percent reported less absenteeism), and job skills (48 percent reported better skills). In addition, more than half of the executives (56 percent) valued the experience of their older workers, believing that the typical worker's contribution to the firm increases steadily over his or her career or increases early and then reaches a plateau. In contrast, only 4 percent of the executives stated that a typical worker's contribution declines sharply after a certain age. The contributions of older workers to the American economy are underappreciated in part because of longstanding prejudices. Older workers are generally perceived by managers as less productive than younger workers or equally productive but more expensive because of their health insurance and pension costs (see chapter 2). Older workers also may face resentment and hostility 3. Four out of five women aged 65 and over who work part-time earn less than $7,500 (Older Women's League, 1991). 4. The AARP study (1989) found that human resource executives gave very good or excellent ratings to older workers with respect to reliable performance (87 percent), solid experience (78 percent), commitment to quality (89 percent), loyalty (86 percent), and attendance and punctuality (91 percent).

Older Americans As Workers 39

from colleagues and supervisors who believe that older workers should retire to open up jobs and promotion opportunities for younger workers. These perceptions lead managers to discriminate against older workers in performance evaluations, compensation, and promotions (Rosen and Jerdee, 1977). Older workers also are considered less able or willing to adapt to change, more difficult to train, and more fixed in outdated ways (AARP, 1989; Louis Harris and Associates, 1991).5 As a result, older workers may find opportunities for training and advancement severely curtailed because managers are reluctant to invest further in their professional development.

Studies of Older Workers' Productivity Research on the productivity of older workers falls into two categories: industrywide or occupationwide studies of the performance of workers in different age cohorts using general measures of productivity and case studies of individual companies using older workers. The conclusions of studies of the first type vary widely. In their seminal paper, Robert Clark, Juanita Kreps, and Joseph Spengler (1978) conclude that the correlation between age and productivity is weak and should not be used to justify mandatory retirement policies. Subsequent studies generally support this conclusion. For production and blue-collar workers and office and clerical workers, different studies have indicated positive, negative, and nonsignificant relationships between age and productivity (Rhodes, 1983). Olivia S. Mitchell, Phillip B.

Levine, and Silvana Pozzebon (1988) concluded that workers in blue-collar occupations experience greater declines in productivity with age than white-collar workers and are more likely to retire early. Mary Jablonski, Kent Kunze, and Larry Rosenblum (1990) reviewed studies that indicated modest declines in productivity with age in the household furniture and footwear manufacturing industries yet virtually no declines until age 60 or 65 among clerical workers and mail sorters. In all these cases, there was considerably more variation in productivity within each age group than across age groups, suggesting that factors other than chronological age are more important in determining productivity. Our case studies of two companies that made special efforts to recruit and 5. In the Harris survey of human resource executives, 57 percent of the executives rated older workers worse than average on flexibility in taking on new assignments, and 37 percent rated them worse than average on suitability for training.

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employ significant numbers of older workers support the view that age is a poor predictor of productive contribution. In 1986, Days Inns of America, the third largest hotel chain in the country, adopted a strategy focusing on hiring older people as reservation agents mainly to reduce employee turnover rates at its reservation center in Atlanta. This was risky because agents work under great pressure and must use a sophisticated on-line computer system while talking to the prospective client. Conventional business judgment considered this type of job inappropriate for older people. However, after Days Inns adapted training sessions to increase the confidence of older people in operating computers, older trainees typically learned as rapidly as younger workers and proved at least as capable on other performance measures. Older workers tended to stay on the job longer, reducing annual training costs, and had higher booking rates (McNaught and Barth, 1992). In a simulation model of total employment costs and productivity that factored in the costs of recruiting, training, wages, and benefits, the net cost of older workers was nearly identical to that of younger workers. As a result of its success, Days Inns expanded the use of older reservation agents. By 1990, more than one quarter of the reservation agents in Atlanta were aged 50 or older, including four people over age 70. The second case study examined B&Q plc, a British chain of 280 housewares stores. B&Q had grown rapidly in the 1980s, but its annual employee turnover averaged nearly 50 percent and the company was not meeting recruiting targets. In 1989, B&Q opened a large home-and-hardware store in Macclesfield, England, entirely staffed by persons over age 50 (Hogarth and Barth, 1991). The Macclesfield store, with 55 positions, was an experiment intended to reduce employee turnover and improve the level of customer service by using older people who knew the store's products from a lifetime of experience doing repairs around their own homes. B&Q's experiment proved to be remarkably successful. As in the case of Days Inns, initial concerns about the trainability of older staff proved unwarranted. Relative to a comparison group of five other B&Q stores, the Macclesfield store had less than half as much employee turnover, less than two-thirds the absenteeism, a staff that was flexible in taking on new assignments and working extra hours (as measured by the amount of overtime worked), and only 40 percent of the shrinkage (pilferage, goods destroyed or damaged), which management believes was explained in part by the older workers' high level of

Older Americans As Workers 41

Table 3.2. Self-Reported Health Status of Older Americans Excellent or Good Health Aged 55 to 64 Aged 65 to 74 Aged 75 and Older

Working men Nonworking men Working women Nonworking women

83%

80%

58

60

81 61

87 57

93% 54 61 50

Source: Louis Harris and Associates, 1992.

attention to customers. The Macclesfield store was 18 percent more profitable than the comparison group and 9 percent more profitable than the companywide average. B&Q was so pleased by its experience with the Macclesfield store that the company set a target of 10 percent, subsequently raised to 12 percent, for its companywide work force over the age of 50. Our research also is enlightening regarding the issue of the health of older workers, which contributes to on-the-job productivity and affects the indirect costs of time lost due to sickness or injury. At Days Inns in 1989, the average cost of health claims was lower for participating older workers than for younger workers. This counterintuitive finding is based on a very small sample but illustrates an important point-older people who continue to work past the normal retirement age tend to be healthier than their nonworking contemporaries (Commonwealth Fund, 1993). In the 1991 Commonwealth Fund Productive Aging Survey, the overwhelming majority of older people who were working reported being in "excellent" or "good" health (table 3.2). Virtually the same percentage of working men aged 65-74 reported being in "excellent" or "good" health as those aged 55-64 because after age 65 men in poor health generally exit the labor force. As for men aged 75 and older who are still working, nearly nineteen out of twenty perceived their health as excellent or good. The selfreported health status of working women was comparable, with the exception of women aged 75 and older, reflecting the fact that a substantial number of very elderly women continue to work because they need the income. (See chapter 2 for a more detailed discussion of the relationship of age to health and disability.) Considering factors that directly or indirectly contribute to costs and productivity, our research assessing the contributions of older workers leads us to

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conclude that older workers are competitive with their younger counterparts on most measures of cost-effectiveness and quality.

The Underutilization of Older Workers Despite the significant work effort contributed by older Americans, evidence from a growing body of literature about the work behavior and retirement decisions of older people, including the 1991 Commonwealth Fund Productive Aging Survey, indicates that older workers are not being utilized to their full productive potential. A lack of access to training to maintain critical job skills, rigidity within existing pension systems, pressure to accept early retirement incentives during corporate downsizing, lack of flexibility in the scheduling and nature of work, and managerial prejudices all contribute to the early retirement of American workers-the most striking form of underutilization.6 The lack of training and flexibility in the workplace and managerial bias further disadvantage those older workers who remain in obtaining promotions and new job assignments.

Work Preferences of Older Americans Retirement has many definitions-ceasing paid employment, receiving a pension, accepting Social Security benefits, calling oneself "retired"-which makes it difficui.t to draw conclusions about people's preferences for work and not working. Retirement may be best described as a series of decisions or stages representing varying degrees of disengagement from paid employment (Barth and McNaught, 1989). Retirement need not mean the total exclusion of work, but it clearly represents an adjustment in the mix of paid work and other activities-and perhaps leisure-with less emphasis on work than when the individual was "working." The retirement of an army officer at, say, age 45, who leaves the military after 20 years and starts a second career, should be considered quite differently from that of a 75-year-old who has stopped working altogether and lives off a pension and Social Security. Whatever its different definitions, the nature of retirement is changing in 6. A significant minority of workers expect to be forced to retire earlier than they would like (Quinn and Burkhauser, 1990). The job market can be frustrating for older people seeking to return to the labor force. Few jobs offer the flexible schedules older people most desire, in particular jobs that pay well but are part-time.

Older Americans As Workers 43

response to demographic, economic, and lifestyle trends. Formerly, labor economists believed that most retirements were the result of mandatory retirement rules and the declining health or physical capabilities of older people. Since 1986, with a few exceptions, mandatory retirement has been prohibited by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and declining health is now viewed as the primary retirement factor only for those who retire before age 65.7 Retirement is now understood to be based on the individual's consideration of the monetary and psychological rewards from continued work versus the value of leisure time, taking into account the need to finance the remainder of his or her life (Quinn and Burkhauser, 1990). The decision to stop or reduce one's work effort is complicated significantly by the fact that one cannot predict accurately one's future health status, life expectancy, rates of return on investments, and access to government entitlement programs such as Medicare. These uncertainties, and the fact that people generally prefer gradual to sudden change, suggest that most workers want to withdraw from the labor force gradually, with the hours worked or type of work being determined by their desire to pursue other activities and their confidence in having sufficient resources (Hurd, 1993).

Full-time versus Part-time Work Data from the 1991 Commonwealth Fund survey support the idea that older people prefer to leave paid work gradually. The survey asked older working men and women their actual hours worked and the number of hours that they would like to work. A comparison of the results (table 3.3) shows that the majority of workers are employed roughly the number of hours they wish to be; for both men and women, about two-thirds of those working full-time prefer that level of work, and more than four out of five part-timers want to work part-time. At the same time, a significant portion of full-time workers would prefer part-time work. The survey did not ask why part-time work was preferable, so one cannot conclude that this finding necessarily reflects a desire for gradual transition to retirementother explanations, like the need to care for an ailing spouse or parent, are equally plausible. Nevertheless, that so many full-time workers would prefer to be working fewer hours suggests a disparity between older people's preferences 7. Private pensions (both their availability and amount) appear to influence retirement decisions more than other commonly predicted factors. See Quinn, Burkhauser, and Myers (1990) and Barth and McNaught (1989) on factors influencing retirement.

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Table 3.3. Actual and Preferred Work Schedules of Older Men and Women

Men

Prefer Full-Time

Prefer Part-Time

Who are working full-time• Who are working part-timeb

69% 17

31% 83

Women

Prefer Full-Time

Prefer Part-Time

Who are working full-time Who are working part-time

64% 19

36% 81

Source: Louis Harris and Associates, 1992. • Defined as 35 hours a week or more. b Defined as fewer than 35 hours a week.

and the realities of the workplace.In addition, 17 percent of the men and 19 percent of the women working part-time would prefer to work full-time, a finding that further supports our contention that older workers are underutilized. In comparison to employment, rates of volunteering decline very slightly as people age. (The decline is rapid only at advanced ages; see chapter 4.) Volunteer organizations may be more flexible than employers about the types of activities requested of volunteers and their schedules. Volunteers have the ability to switch to less demanding activities or simply reduce the number of hours they donate-an option not available to most workers. Further, the percentage of older workers who are self-employed increases with age, in part because of the large proportion of farmers in this age group. However, older people also are more likely to have the accumulated savings and business knowledge and contacts that may make starting their own business less risky for them than for younger people. Self-employment is appealing because it offers exceptional flexibility in terms of hours worked and schedules (Doeringer, 1991). If similar flexibility were available in the corporate workplace, one would expect the number of employed older Americans to be significantly higher.

Choosing to Stop Working Are older workers being forced to select the lesser evil-work or complete retirement? The question eludes a simple answer. Hurd (1993) found that,

Older Americans As Workers 45

among wage workers aged 50--61 who did not have the flexibility to adjust their hours, those who wanted to reduce their hours were approximately half as likely to expect to be still working full-time after age 62 or 65 as those who were happy with a full-time work schedule. This finding supports the idea that those who prefer flexible work hours are more inclined to leave the labor force instead of working full-time once they reach the typical retirement age of 62-65. Joseph Quinn and Richard Burkhauser (1990) found that 65 percent of the working men aged 55-64 and 55 percent of working women aged 50-59 expected to retire when they wished to (typically between the ages of 62 and 65), after they had become eligible for Social Security and private pensions. However, Quinn and Burkhauser also found that many older workers were not satisfied with the work opportunities available to them. Extrapolating survey results to the national population, the authors estimate that approximately 1.1 million older workers expected to retire earlier than they wanted to, and twothirds of these workers would extend their careers if work conditions changed (for instance, if they could switch to a job with fewer hours, less responsibility, and lower pay). If such flexible opportunities are not available with their current employers, many of these older workers can be expected to pursue a bridge job as a way to ease into retirement. These jobs, which are usually part-time and more flexible, allow a gradual reduction in work effort, usually with a matching decrease in compensation. With the reasonably conservative definition of a bridge job as

work in a new job after age 55 lasting for less than five years, Hurd (1993) suggests that approximately one in seven workers age 55 and older will hold a bridge job as a transition to full retirement. Quinn and Burkhauser (1990) also found that over half of all workers surveyed would extend their working careers under three scenarios in which the employer made some accommodation. s The desire to extend their working careers was not limited to those who expected to retire before age 62 or 65. In the same survey, one in five working men aged 55-64 and one in ten working women aged 50-59 wished to continue working beyond age 65. The majority 8. The three scenarios were: if the employer continued making pension contributions past age 65; if the employer offered a position with fewer hours and responsibilities and somewhat lower pay; and if training were available for a job with different responsibilities but the same hours and pay.

BARTH, MCNAUGHT, AND RIZZI

of these workers wanted to stay employed for another one to five years, but 42 percent of the men and 33 percent of the women said that they wanted to work as long as they could. These desires stand in sharp contrast to conventional ideas about superannuated workers and retirement.

The Willing and Able to Work The most dramatic example of the underutilization of older Americans is the number who would like to work but do not currently have jobs. Based on the Commonwealth Fund survey, table 3.4 classifies the employment status of the 52.4 million older Americans in 1991 into four categories: working, not wishing to work (whether able to or not), wishing to work but unable to, and willing and able to work but without a job. Participants in the survey who were not currently working were asked, "Would you prefer to be working?" If the response was yes, they were asked, "If a suitable job were available in your area, would you be able to work?" Those answering yes to both questions are called the "willing and able to work." Extrapolating from the survey responses, approximately 5.4 million older Americans report being willing and able to work.9 The willing and able comprise a significant fraction of each age group, ranging from nearly 9 percent of those aged 75 and older to 13 percent of the men and women aged 65-74 (see table 3.4). The willing and able to work represent a diverse mix of older people, including retirees wishing to reenter the labor market out of boredom or financial need and displaced workers who have not found reemployment. The 5.4 million older Americans reported to be willing and able to work compare favorably with their working contemporaries along several important work-related attributes. The willing and able to work are only slightly less healthy (self-reported health assessment), educated, and skilled as those working (table 3.5). In addition, the willing and able to work are flexible about 9. Using similar questions, a 1989 survey, also commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, of men aged 55-64 and women aged 50-59 estimated the number of willing and able workers for these age groups as 1.1 million (McNaught, Barth, and Henderson, 1989). The lower estimate resulted from the use of several additional screening questions designed to measure the motivation and capability of the respondents and the smaller population on which the survey was based. The same screening questions were not included in the 1991 Commonwealth Fund survey so the original analysis cannot be repeated.

Table3.4. Employment Status of Older Americans Aged 55 to 64 Number (in Millions) Percentage Working 10.8 Not working 10.4 Do not want to work 6.5 Not able to work 1.9 Willing and able to work 2.0 21.2 Total

Total Number (in Millions)

Aged 65 to 74 Number (in Millions)

Percentage

Aged 75 and Older Number (in Millions) Percentage

51% 49 31 9

3.0 15.1 10.3 2.5

16% 84 57 14

0.5 12.6 9.5 1.9

4% 96 73 15

14.3 38.1 26.4 6.3

9 100

2.3 18.1

13 100

1.1 13.1

8 100

5.4 52.4

Note: Numbers may not total exactly due to rounding. Source: Louis Harris and Associates, 1992.

BARTH, MCNAUGHT, AND RIZZI

Table 3.5. Comparison of the Willing and Able to Work and Working Contemporaries

Excellent or very good health High school graduate or more Professional or technical skills

Willing and Able to Work

Working Contemporaries

70% 59 40

82% 74 51

Source: Louis Harris and Associates, 1992.

Table 3.6. Willingness of Older People to Work under Difficult Conditions

Willing and Able to Work Who Would Accept Work Condition Work alone Work seasonally Receive less pay than last job Commute half an hour or more Work evenings and weekends Stand most of the day

72%

68 60 58 37 41

Source: Louis Harris and Associates, 1992.

their working conditions; a majority are willing to work alone or seasonally, and significant fractions are willing to work under other nonroutine conditions (table 3.6). These people's interest in work is not limited to a narrow range of choice jobs that have desirable schedules, high job security, and good pay. Because responses to surveys are subject to numerous biases and measure attitudes and preferences, rather than actual behavior (such as responding to a help-wanted advertisement), the estimate of 5.4 million older Americans who are willing and able to work should not be considered definitive. For comparison, based on a set of questions in the Current Population Survey, the BLS estimated the number of unemployed and "discouraged" older workers (those who have stopped looking for work) at 833,000 in 1991. The BLS questions restricted responses about willingness to work and the possible availability of jobs, and we view the BLS figure as a lower-limit estimate.'O 10. The BLS estimate is based on responses to the Current Population Survey questionnaire, which asked, "Do you want to work?" and, if so, "Why aren't you looking?" In addition,

Older Americans As Workers 49

Table 3.7. Older Americans Willing and Able to Work (Estimated)

Willing and able to work ... and in good or excellent health. and will work for less pay than previous job and under difficult circumstances (e.g., working alone). and needing money is most important reason for wanting to work. and have worked in the past three years.

Total (in Millions)

Men (in Millions)

Women (in Millions)

5.4 3.8

2.71 1.84

2.71 1.94

3.2

1.88

1.31

2.0

1.01

0.97

1.9

0.94

0.91

Source: Louis Harris and Associates, 1992.

Realistically, some of the people we have labeled ''willing and able to work" have very limited employment prospects because they lack a recent work history or certain skills or have a medical condition that limits their activity. We have used additional questions in the survey to develop alternative estimates of the number of older Americans who could be competitive in a variety of possible job situations. Someone unable to work steadily for more than 90 minutes because of declining health may be willing to work and able to perform some jobs, but such jobs are so rare as to make the chances for employment quite low. Counting only those who consider themselves to be in excellent or good health reduces the estimate of the willing and able population to approximately 3.8 million (table 3.7). Because employers assume that work skills degrade rapidly when not used or quickly become outdated, the number of the willing and able is based on those who had held a job within the past three years. This restriction yields an estimate of 1.9 million, roughly 35 percent of the original estimate of 5.4 million. the questionnaire asks about a "regular'' job, perhaps implying a full-time position. The 1991 Commonwealth Fund survey did not ask whether willing and able older Americans were actively looking for a job, so direct comparisons with BLS data on labor force attachment and unemployment rates are not possible. The questions in the Commonwealth Fund survey ask about a "suitable" job, which may have suggested to the respondent a job of his or her choice.

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Another factor potentially relevant to securing and holding a job is motivation. Many older people cite the satisfaction and sense of being a productive and valuable member of society as important reasons for wanting to work, but this strikes us as weaker motivation than needing the income from a paid job. Imposing the constraint that the most important reason for wanting to work must be the need for money reduces the estimated number of willing and able by 63 percent, to 2 million. None of these estimates is "correct" because all rely on expressions of preferences rather than actual behavior. The 5.4 million estimate is certainly valid as an expression of preference, although it does not take into account the realities of the current labor market. A lower figure might be a better conservative starting point for public policy discussions concerned with the underutilization and underemployment of older Americans. The important point is not the precise figure but the fact that there are literally millions of Americans aged 55 and older who are willing and able to work but unable to find suitable jobs.

Why the Willing and Able to Work Are Not Working

So many older people who wanted to work were not working in part because during the fall of 1991, when the survey was conducted, the country was in a period of weak economic growth after a recession, when more jobs were disappearing than were being created. II The lack of job creation during this period certainly hurt the employment prospects of older Americans in general, driving up the number unable to find work. In addition, corporate America made widespread use of early retirement incentive programs (ERIPs) to shrink work forces.I2 Although the wave of ERIPS finally may have crested, as companies realize 11. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of change in the gross domestic product in the two quarters prior to the survey were 1.5 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively, and this weak growth followed three quarters of economic contraction. Over this same period, the unemployment rate for all age groups was rising, increasing competition for jobs. 12. An ERIP is a package of benefits, such as an enhanced pension, generous severance pay, and retraining stipend, offered to employees during a limited period if they retire earlier than usually allowed under the company's pension plan rules. ERIPS are frequently structured to be most attractive to older workers approaching retirement, although by law they must be offered to all employees regardless of age. During the 1980s, ERIPS became a predictable, legal, surefire way for managers to reduce the number of employees during downsizing and restructuring (Louis Harris and Associates, 1991). The wide-

Older Americans As Workers 51

their negative consequences, it left behind a large number of displaced older workers (Congressional Budget Office, 1993; Doeringer, 1991).13 Despite the extensive work histories and experience of older workers, much of this knowledge may be company-specific and not transferable to a new employer. Older workers also typically have little recent experience with finding a job, which hinders their chances for swift reemployment. In addition to their longer average periods of joblessness, the reemployment rate for dislocated older workers in the 1980s was substantially lower than that for their younger counterparts, and the withdrawal rate of dislocated older workers from the labor force was two to three times higher (Doeringer, 1991). Even those older workers who were able to find new jobs experienced a larger average drop in wages compared to their previous job than did dislocated younger workers. More than half of the displaced workers aged 60 and older who found new jobs earned at least 20 percent less at their new jobs (Congressional Budget Office, 1993). A contributing factor for the lower wages among reemployed older workers was the large shift to part-time work, often an involuntary action dictated by the lack of full-time work opportunities.t4 For many older workers, the seemingly generous offers extended by companies for early retirement have proved to be considerably less rewarding as they realize that the enhanced benefits alone are not sufficient to sustain complete retirement and that there are fewer opportunities for reemployment at comparable wages. We believe, however, that the underlying cause of the underutilization of older people as workers goes beyond the vicissitudes of the business cycle and spread use of ERIPS supports the contention that many managers consider older workers to be less innovative, less dynamic, less productive, and, all things being equal, more expensive than younger workers-a perception that does not seem founded on the facts. 13. Although downsizing, layoffs, and restructuring appear to have become permanent features of the American economy (Marks, 1993; Harrison and Bluestone, 1988), managers are increasingly acknowledging the negative consequences of ERIPS as a means of reducing a company's work force (Morrison, 1990; Right Associates, 1992). In addition to possibly leading to the loss of the people with the best skills and prospects for another job, early retirement of an older worker frequently costs more than the departure of a younger colleague. Morrison (1990) found that the expensive pension benefits and health care costs of early-retiring older workers resulted in up to 41 percent higher costs than a program focusing on younger workers, who often have no pensions or partially vested pensions and no continuation of health care benefits. 14. See Hurd (1993) for an extended discussion of the factors affecting the wages of older workers, in particular workers moving to more flexible jobs.

BARTH, MCNAUGHT, AND RIZZI

Figure 3.1a. U.S. Population in 1990 (Projected)

• • .. • Age

Men

Women

90+

I

85-89 80-84

75-79 70-74 65-69 60-64 55-59 50-54

45-49 40-44 35-39 30-34 25-29 20-24 15-19 10-14 5-9 0-4 I

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Population (millions) Source: Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, P25-1092, November 1992.

the disappointing performance of the national economy in the early 1990s. (In chapter 7, Kevin Coleman estimates the annual loss in potential output due to this underutilization at $25 to $82 billion.) It probably stems in large part from current corporate and governmental policies related to pensions, Social Security, health care insurance, access to training, and workplace flexibility that encourage retirement at or before age 65 and inhibit work beyond age 65. Removing the barriers created by these policies will take on a greater urgency as the labor force continues to age.

Older Americans As Workers 53

Figure 3.1b. U.S. Population in 2020 (Projected)

-

Men

••

Age

Women

90+

85-89

80-84

75-79 70-74

65-69 60-84

55-59

50-54 45-49 40-44 35-39 30-34 25-29 20-24

15-19 10-14

5-9 0-4 I

12

10

6

4

2

0

0

2

I

I

I

8

4

6

8

10

12

Population (millions)

Source: Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, P25-1092, November 1992.

The Aging of the Labor Force and the Changing Nature of Work How will the aging of the labor force and structural changes in the economy affect employment opportunities for older workers? Will the prospects of those currently willing and able to work improve in the future? And perhaps more important, what about the prospects for the mass of baby boomers approaching age 55?

BARTH, MCNAUGHT, AND RIZZI

Table 3.8. Labor-Force Participation Rates

Men

Aged 55 to 64 Aged 65 and Older

1960 86.8% 33.1

1975 75.6% 21.6

1990 67.7% 16.4

2005 67.9% 16.0

Women

Aged 55 to 64 Aged 65 and Older

37.2 10.8

40.9 8.2

45.3 8.7

54.3 8.8

Source: U.S. Bureau ofLabor Statistics, 1989, 1992.

The Future Supply of Older Workers Older people will be the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population over the next thirty years as the baby boomers reach retirement age (see figures 3.1 a and 3.1b.). In 1990, 21 percent of the American population was age 55 or older; by 2020, nearly one in three Americans will be age 55 or older, and twice as many people will be turning 55 each year as did so in 1990 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1990). During the same period, the number of 18-24-year-olds, the new entrants to the labor force, will be flat or declining. As a result, if taborforce participation rates and levels of immigration hold steady over this time, the growth rate of the labor force will be significantly lower than in the recent past, and when the demand for labor returns to a normal level, companies may have to turn to new sources of labor to maintain a steady supply of motivated, skilled workers. The Bureau ofLabor Statistics expects the labor-force participation rates of older workers to increase somewhat between now and 2005 (see table 3.8), the latest year for which BLS has forecasted (BLS, 1992), which would further alter the age composition of the labor force. From the late 1950s to the mid-1980s, the participation rates of men aged 55--64 and 65 and older declined steadily (see figure 3.2) as increases in real income and the structure of pension plans made retirement more attractive and possible (Barth and McNaught, 1991).15 15. In 1990, 68.4 percent of those receiving Social Security benefits had retired before age 65, the age for receipt of full benefits. The "normal" age for retirement is considered age 65, based on the Social Security legislation passed in 1935, which adopted the age used in the German pension system established by Chancellor Bismarck in the 1880s. Bismarck originally selected a retirement age of 70 to ensure that few workers would live to

Figure 3.2. Labor Force Participation Rates of Older Men, by Age Cohort, 1950-1992 100%

80%

---...... ...... __ _

----------- ..... _..... _____________ _

60%

40%

·····················································································································-····················· 20%

0%

I

I

1950

I

I

I

I

I

1955

I

I

I

I

I

1960

I

I

I

I

I

I

1965 55 to 64

I

I

I

I

1970

I

I

I

I

I

I

I

1975

I

I

I

19!10

55 and Older 65 and Older

Source: U.S. Bureau ofLabor Statistics, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993.

I

I

I

I

I

19!15

I

I

I

I

I

1990

I

I

I

I

I

Figure 3.3. Labor Force Participation Rates of Older Women, by Age Cohort, 1950-1992

60%

40%

..,....

___________ _

- ---------------

/

20%

........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 0%

1950

1955

1960

1965 55 to 64

1970

1975

1980

55 and Older 65 and Older

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993.

1985

1990

Older Americans As Workers 57

Since the mid-1980s, however, the labor-force participation rate for men aged 55--64 has leveled off and is expected to hold steady or slightly increase in the future.I6 The labor-force participation rate for men aged 65 and older leveled off at the same time but is expected to decline between now and 2005. The labor-force participation rate for women aged 55--64 is projected to rise gradually, as it has over the past thirty years (figure 3.3), while that for women aged 65 and older is expected to remain constant. These projections are based on the extrapolation of population and laborforce participation data and may provide a conservative estimate of the impact of the aging population on the supply of labor. If more baby boomers continue to work beyond the normal retirement age, the number of older people in the labor force may be even greater than is implied by these projections, and the aging of the labor force will be even more pronounced. There are several reasons why baby boomers may want to work longer. Life expectancy continues to increase, which means that older people will live longer in retirement and, as a result, need more income or accumulated wealth to support their lifestyle in retirement. Retiring baby boomers also may still be supporting dependents-young children, as a result of having delayed starting a family; adult children, as it becomes more difficult for them to start their own independent working careers; or parents, who will be living longer. Prospective retirees may face these demands with less accrued wealth than their parents; the value of their housing assets, in particular, is unlikely to rise in the spectacular manner their parents' did.

draw pensions. During World War I, Germany lowered the retirement age to 65. Any agebased norm for retirement is an arbitrary selection, and we argue that, while such norms may provide useful reference points for pension plans, personnel planning, and segment marketing, retirement decisions should be based on the specific circumstances of each worker. 16. The reasons for the leveling off of the labor-force participation rates for older men are a source of considerable speculation. On the demand side, the large number of jobs created in the mid-1980s opened up greater opportunities for older men who wished to extend their careers, and the greater use of contingent workers allowed older workers to retire from career jobs but stay in the labor force. On the supply side, rising medical costs, declining retiree benefits, declining returns on savings and assets (i.e., dividend and interest income), and changes in housing values may be causing near-retirees to postpone retirement and retirees to reenter the labor force. Many of these suggested explanations suggest that, if the trends persist, the labor-force participation rate for older men may increase in the coming decades.

BARTH, MCNAUGHT, AND RIZZI

Rising health care costs, cutbacks in retiree health care benefits, less widespread coverage by private pensions, and potential cutbacks in government programs such as Social Security may impinge on the financial security of future retirees. Retirement for baby boomers in the twenty-first century will be more uncertain and less attractive than it is today. Also, a larger percentage of older people are in excellent health than previously and maintain their good health well past age 65. Recent research indicates that disability rates for those aged 65 and older declined between 1982 and 1989, and that in 1989, 77 percent of those aged 65 and older reported having no disability (Manton, Corder, and Stallard, 1993a, 1993b). Coupled with structural changes in the economy requiring less physically demanding work, prolonged good health can be expected to increase the variety of jobs available to many older people. Collectively, these trends may increase the need or desire of older people to continue to work, thereby increasing the supply of older workers and further skewing the age distribution of the labor force. A final consideration is the correlation between purposeful work and life satisfaction. With the exception of working women aged 75 and older, roughly 19 of 20 older working men and women who responded to the 1991 Commonwealth Fund survey reported being at least "somewhat" satisfied with life.17 Further, 67 percent of these workers were "very" satisfied with life, indicating a strong link between purposeful activity and overall happiness.

Future Demand for Older Workers Although there is compelling evidence for believing that the supply of older workers will grow well into the twenty-first century, this supply must be matched by a concurrent increase in the demand for older workers if employ17. Among very elderly working women, only three of four report being satisfied with life. As noted earlier, this lower level of satisfaction may be related to the higher incidence of poverty among older women, which requires them to hold jobs despite their advanced age. Cynthia Taeuber reports that in 1989, 58 percent of all women aged 75 and older had an annual income of $10,000 or less (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992). The positive correlation between paid work and life satisfaction holds, even taking into account the higher income provided by employment (Davis, 1991), suggesting that paid employment offers a considerable intangible reward in the form of reaffirming one's value to society. Life satisfaction, in turn, may influence one's propensity to remain engaged in society in other ways, such as volunteering or caregiving.

Older Americans As Workers 59

ment among older people is to rise significantly. Will mainstream American companies reverse the current tendency to ignore older workers or push them out? Will the changing nature of jobs help or hurt the ability of older Americans to compete for them? Much will depend on the future rate of job creation. Given the small estimated number of first-time entrants to the labor force over the next twenty years, strong economic growth may be the key to expanding opportunities for older workers. Sustained high rates of economic growth could create jobs faster than the labor force grows, leading to skill and labor shortages that would force companies to search out new sources of labor, such as older Americans. In contrast, if job growth languishes, companies will be able to meet their recruiting needs without making the workplace changes necessary to attract and retain nontraditional segments of the labor force. In that case, the work environment for older workers will remain the same, and employers will face little pressure to create a workplace more attuned to the preferences of the older worker. Beyond aggregate job growth, the national economy is changing in ways that will affect employment prospects for older Americans. We offer the following thoughts about the important trends changing the workplace and job market. On the negative side, many medium-sized and large manufacturing companies are likely to continue to struggle to remain competitive in the face of cheaper labor and more efficient production abroad (Mirvis, 1993). Part of this struggle will be a tight focus on controlling costs, which is likely to translate into continued downsizing, possibly through ERIPs. Even companies that are not

laying off employees are not likely to invest in new human resource programs, such as flexible work arrangements, that do not immediately boost profitability. Strong continued growth in the service sector (Kutscher and Personik, 1986) should be viewed as helping older workers because these industries are likely to value experience, knowledge, and judgment more than physical ability. IS The job-performance attributes on which older people are highly rated-such as 18. The service industries include transportation, public utilities, communications, wholesale and retail trade, financial services, insurance, real estate, and government. This list necessarily covers a very wide spectrum of jobs, from unskilled work to positions requiring extensive training and specialized skills. Older workers will not be better suited for all of these jobs, but, other things being equal, they will be better able to compete with younger workers for jobs that rely more on accumulated experience and acquired knowledge than for jobs that require physical ability.

BARTH, MCNAUGHT, AND RIZZI

commitment to quality, reliability, and customer service-are those that employers cite as the most important to staying competitive in the global economy, in particular in service industries (Mirvis, 1993). In addition, as noted earlier, jobs in service industries are more likely to offer the flexibility regarding schedules and work intensity often desired by older workers.'9 The proportion of workers who are employed part-time has grown from 12.1 percent in 1957 to 18 percent in 1991, indicating the extent to which steady fulltime jobs are becoming scarce (BLS, 1991). The flexible nature of these jobs matches well with the preferences of older workers, but these positions often have lower hourly wages and do not have the same level of fringe benefits as full-time jobs. Fringe benefits may not be an important consideration for retirees reentering the labor force; however, for displaced workers or workers leaving career jobs for more flexible bridge jobs before age 65, the low wages and lack of benefits often associated with part-time or contingent work may create financial hardship, especially if the cost of health care insurance continues to grow at current rates.2o Further, these jobs are often precarious and subject to sudden layoffs, creating considerable anxiety for workers about the future. On balance, the changing nature of work should create more flexible work opportunities-part-time work, temporary positions, telecommuting, job sharing-that match the preferences of many older Americans better than a year-round, full-time job. More and more of these jobs will be in service industries, where the attributes of older workers-work attitude, experience, commitment to service, and so forth-are more highly valued. The jobs most available in the future also are likely to be less secure and possibly less gen19. Workplace flexibility is well known in the service sector, in particular for highly trained people involved in generating, processing, and disseminating infonnation. The banking, communication, and insurance industries are among the leaders in offering workplace flexibility programs such as flextime, flexplace (i.e., working at home or telecommuting), and job sharing (see Schoenbom, 1993, and Henkoff, 1993, for examples). However, workplace flexibility, particularly targeted toward older workers, is not limited to these businesses. Kentucky Fried Chicken, for instance, hires retirees as part-time managers for 20 to 30 hours per week, with full benefits (Lewis, 1990). 20. Part-time and contingent work is problematic also in that many of the newly created part-time or contingent positions displace an incumbent full-time worker. For example, a finance department restructuring that cuts administrative overhead in favor of contracted services may be good for the 66-year-old retired accountant who wants a 20hour-per-week consulting position and does not need benefits, but not for the 57-year-old middle manager who loses his or her job.

Older Americans As Workers 61

erous in terms of pay and fringe benefits than in the past. The older workers who will profit from these changes will be the ones who can adapt to this new, less certain and predictable workplace and who independently maintain a set of current and valued skills in anticipation of the next job change.

Corporate and Government Policies Affecting Employment The underutilization of older Americans as workers-both those currently working and those wishing to work-goes well beyond the state of the economy and the hidden prejudices of a youth-oriented society. Much of the underutilization is the result of rigid corporate and government policies and practices. Older workers wishing to ease into retirement gradually by incrementally reducing their hours worked or the responsibilities of their position are thwarted by a lack of flexibility in how work is organized. Older people wishing to work past the so-called normal retirement age find powerful disincentives to continuing their employment that typically result in their leaving their career job and finding a bridge job. An important step toward remedying the current underutilization of older Americans and improving the employment prospects of the baby boomers in the future will be changing these policies to create a more pro-work environment (see chapter 11).

Private Pension Policies Labor economists widely agree that private defined-benefit pension plans create strong disincentives for continued work past normal retirement age (Barth and McNaught, 1989; Quinn, Burkhauser, and Myers, 1990). Although the number of U.S. workers with pension coverage is declining as companies scale back benefits and increase the use of part-time and contingent workers, approximately 41 million workers participate in defined-benefit pension plans (Employee Benefit Research Institute, 1992). Most of these plans provide retirement income based on a formula that includes the worker's years of service and earnings during the final years of work. Many plans also have a cap on the number of years of service that are counted in calculating benefits, which reduces the incentive to continue working after the cap has been reached. Although defined-benefit pension plans are numerous and highly varied, maximum pension benefits are normally provided at age 65 or after a certain

BARTH, MCNAUGHT, AND RIZZI

number of years of service. Further, in 1991, provisions for early retirement existed in 97 percent of the defined-benefit pension plans in place at mediumsize and large private companies, with the minimum age of eligibility typically being 55 (Employee Benefit Research Institute, 1992). Early retirement reduces the annual pension amount but usually not by enough to be actuarially neutral. These plans therefore penalize work past the eligible retirement age by reducing the expected lifetime pension payments for an individual who continues to work (and thereby forgoes collecting his or her pension during each year of additional work).21 In some cases, these lost benefits are offset by a higher pension amount in retirement, but only rarely. As a result, the pension amount lost during the extra working years is only partially recovered in retirement or lost forever. In contrast, the work disincentives associated with defined-contribution pension plans (in which a percentage of annual compensation is contributed to a dedicated account to accrue until retirement) are quite modest (Hurd, 1993).22 Eliminating the work disincentives in the structure of current pension plans would probably result in more older workers extending their career jobs.23 Further, pension formulas should use the highest inflation-adjusted annual income to calculate pension income. This change would allow older workers to switch to part-time positions or positions with less pay and responsibility without lowering their annual pension, as would occur under current formulas. Pension formulas also could be changed to eliminate the cap of years of service to reward those who make the longest commitment to a company. In the absence of such changes to defined-benefit plans, the trend toward defined-contribution pension plans is a step in the right direction. Between 1990 and 1992, more than 30,000 defined-benefit pension plans were terminated, and most were replaced by defined-contribution pension plans (Fay, 1993). Defined-contribution pension funds are roughly age-neutral and there21. Working past the eligible retirement age results in a loss in the expected lifetime pension payments. This decline in potential lifetime pension wealth is offset to some extent, of course, by the income resulting from continuing to work. 22. Under defined-contribution pension plans, workers are not able to withdraw their accrued pension amounts before retirement without incurring a substantial tax penalty and may not be able to borrow against these savings to meet financial needs while still working. Consequently, workers may be inclined to retire early just to gain access to their accrued pension amount without incurring a penalty. 23. In the absence of such changes, we expect that any increased employment of older people will result from postcareer bridge jobs rather than from longer tenure in career jobs.

Older Americans As Workers 63

fore allow workers to decide to retire on the basis of considerations other than their expected lifetime pension payout. Defined-contribution pension funds are also more likely to be portable, so that an older worker's pension benefits do not inhibit switching employers. Finally, two-step pension plans could be devised for those who switch to part-time work as a transition to full retirement. These plans would provide a pension based on the plan's regular formula for years of full-time service, supplemented by additional accruals for part-time work during the transition to retirement. In general, offering fringe benefits prorated to hours worked would increase the compensation of older workers and eliminate the incentives for employers to restrict part-time positions to less than 1,000 hours a year (the limit after which an employer must provide full benefits according to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974).

Social Security Policies The federal Social Security system has been studied by many researchers and policymakers to determine what role, if any, it plays in influencing people's decision to work or retire. Two specific elements of the program, the retirement earnings test and the delayed-retirement credit, are thought to influence older people's propensity for work. The retirement earnings test decreases the benefits to a Social Security recipient aged 62--69 who earns income from work above a set amount. For those younger than age 65, however, the test is approximately actuarially neutral, with the affected worker receiving less in monthly

benefits while working before age 65 and more after age 65, when benefits are recalculated. The primary effect of the retirement earnings test for this age group is not a change in the lifetime wealth of the worker (that is, benefits permanently lost because of continued work) but simply an adjustment in year-toyear income (Hurd, 1993). The evidence to date, however, suggests that the test does affect how many hours Social Security recipients work; most of this group work only as many hours as keep their earnings at or below the exempt amount (Burtless and Moffitt, 1985; lams, 1987; Paul, 1987). Hurd (1993) speculates that workers view the earnings test as a tax and respond by reducing their work effort to avoid exceeding the earnings limit, as do employers when structuring work assignments. Eliminating the retirement earnings test may open up a greater range of part-time work for older workers, although available evidence suggests that the impact of this change would not be significant. Barriers to

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such a change are its cost in the short run and the fact that the benefits would largely go to relatively well-off individuals. The delayed-retirement credit, which increases Social Security benefits by a set percentage for each month after age 65 in which a recipient delays collecting Social Security, is being adjusted gradually to be actuarially fair. Speeding up the increase in the delayed-retirement credit would achieve age neutrality sooner, possibly having a small positive effect on the labor-force participation rate of older Americans. Here again, the possibility of this useful change is impeded by short-term costs and the probability that higher benefits will largely go to well-off individuals. In general, Social Security rules are moving incrementally toward age neutrality and should not significantly affect people's retirement decisions. If these policies are understood by older workers and employers to be essentially fair, they should have relatively little effect on older people's decisions regarding whether and how much to work. Other adjustments to Social Security, however, could encourage people to stay in the work force longer. For example, accelerating the planned increase in age for the "full receipt" of benefits (now scheduled to be age 67 by the year 2022) may incrementally encourage older workers to delay retirement. Taxing Social Security benefits for all incomes would reduce older people's incomes, making retirement less desirable. Exempting the earnings of workers over age 65 from Social Security contributions would make these workers more attractive to employers and increase their earnings.

Health Care Insurance Broader coverage of older persons through the government's health care insurance system would clearly help the employment prospects for older workers. Business is gripped in a long, difficult struggle to control the health insurance costs of its workers, and older workers are perceived to have the highest health care costs. A national health care system under the federal government would eliminate this concern for employers. Less drastic actions include requiring community rating, in which the expected use (and cost) of health care services is based on the recent experience of the entire community rather than that of only the company's workers. Switching to community rating would make hiring older workers less expensive because the changing age mix of the company's work force would not influence the company's health care insurance pre-

Older Americans As Workers 65

miums. The federal government also could change the statutory provision that makes the employer of a worker aged 65-69 the first payer of health care insurance coverage and Medicare the second payer. This change would assist only a fraction of the older workers, but coupling it with a lower age for Medicare eligibility would increase the number of older workers who would stand to gain.

Access to Training and Flexibility in the Workplace Companies could better utilize their current older employees and extend their careers by offering training as well as greater flexibility in the workplace. Corporations need to acknowledge that older workers are discriminated against regarding access to training and skills upgrading. Addressing this bias against older workers should be as high a priority as it is for the rest of the work force. Employers should recognize that certain techniques are particularly effective in teaching older workers (for example, extensive use of real-world examples, self-paced materials) and incorporate them into the design and delivery of training courses (Bass and Barth, 1992). On the part of government, an expansion of services provided under the Job Training Partnership Act is due. Currently, 3 percent of these funds are targeted to workers aged 55 and older. At this level of funding, only a fraction of the unemployed in this age group are served by the program. Similarly, the federal government could expand Title V of the Older Americans Act, which provides compensated community service jobs to older Americans.

For many companies, offering greater flexibility in the workplace requires simply extending programs already offered to other segments of the work force to older workers. They could also initiate programs that specifically address the aspirations and needs of older workers, such as phased retirement, flextime, and job sharing. One way of improving workplace flexibility for all workers is through job redesign, in which the organization of work is rethought to recognize new constraints as well as new technologies and opportunities for improved efficiency. These changes may eliminate rigid practices in some jobs, such as the requirement that employees work in a certain location or during specific hours. Job redesign offers the potential for wholesale changes in how work is organized and completed. The disincentives described here combine to limit the opportunities that older workers have in their career jobs to match their work efforts with their

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work preferences. The lack of flexibility in the workplace and pension plan incentives for early retirement strongly encourage older workers to leave their career jobs even when they wish to continue working. At best, older workers may have the option of being "rehired" by their career employer as a temporary worker or consultant through a retiree job bank. Such an arrangement allows them to continue using the considerable company-specific knowledge and skills they have built up over a career, but this option may not provide the consistent and predictable volume of work or financial security desired. Even though the best opportunity for continued work may be with one's career employer, if fewer hours at a relatively high rate of compensation are the goal, a more likely scenario for an individual wishing to continue working is to change industries or occupations. This switch obviates any company-specific knowledge and skills and often requires new training and orientation, decreasing the value of the new worker to the company doing the hiring. Moreover, opportunities for flexible work hours and part-time work are largely limited to jobs in the service sectors (for which the pay may be modest), which suggests that many older workers wishing to continue working past retirement age will have to accept the sharp decrease in hourly wages that typically accompanies leaving a career job.

Conclusion Older workers represent a valuable, diverse, and largely unrecognized segment of the American labor force. In light of the demographic trends unfolding, the importance of creating a work environment congenial to older workers is difficult to overstate. The current environment does not easily allow older workers to work at their preferred level of intensity, stay at their career jobs past retirement age, or switch employers and fields without a disproportionate loss in compensation. It also hinders reentry to the labor force after retirement. As a result, although 14.3 million older Americans are working, as many as 5.4 Inillion more older Americans say they are willing and able to work but do not have a job. Failure to accommodate our older citizens' desire to work may raise the cost of government entitlement programs for the aged, decrease the national savings rate, and erode the gains made over the past thirty years in reducing poverty among the elderly. Accommodating these work preferences may take many forms. The important issues for older workers are maintaining their skills and value to their current

Older Americans As Workers 67

employer; ensuring age neutrality in pay, pensions, and other benefits; and avoiding layoffs. Workers approaching retirement can be expected to be more concerned with increasing the opportunities for reduced hours through phased retirement, part-time work, or job switching. Those already out of the labor force may seek reentry to the work force in flexible positions. Older workers, and those wishing to work, must recognize that many of the changes transforming the national economy promise greater employment opportunities, but also carry risks in the form of less job security and more positions based on pay for performance. Employers, in turn, need to recognize that the current workplace is not age neutral, and the demographic trends unfolding in the labor force can be a source of competitive advantage. They need to see that retaining older workers in some manner adds flexibility to their work force. In many cases, change will be made voluntarily by companies, based on their individual assessment of the costs and benefits of responding to this segment of the labor force. Alternatively, change could be encouraged or mandated by government action, ranging from tax incentives to regulatory requirements (see chapter 11). Government training and education programs, in particular, could play a critical role in maintaining the skills and knowledge of older workers. Changes in policies will depend on the extent to which the productive potential of older Americans is considered a priority for American society in the near future. Even if policies change, the results may not be immediate. The current causes of poverty among older women, for example-long life expectancy in retirement, a paucity of valued work skills and history, and a lack of indepen-

dent sources of income in retirement-are not easily addressed in the short term. The prevalence of poverty among older women is unlikely to diminish, barring a significant change in national income support policies, because modest incomes afforded by work alone, if work can be found, are unlikely to lift these women out of poverty. A lasting solution must come over the longer term, from education, training, and a more open and fair labor market. Although not all of the changes recommended here and in chapter 11 need to be implemented in order to improve employment opportunities for older Americans, certain changes can be made simply because there are no compelling reasons not to make them. Any effort to create age neutrality in the workplace must call into question the idea of an age-based norm for retirement. Making the structure of work more flexible will make jobs more appealing to older people interested in part-time work. Bringing such changes about will

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better harness the productive capability of older workers, which we believe is in the best interest of older people, of business, and, ultimately, of society.

References American Association of Retired Persons. (1989). Business and older workers: Current perceptions and new directions for the 1990s. Washington, D.C.: AARP. Barth, M. C., and McNaught, W. (1989). Why workers retire early. Americans over 55 at Work Program Background Paper no. 1. New York: Commonwealth Fund. - - - . (1991). The impact of future demographic shifts on the employment of older workers. Human Resource Management, 30 (1), 420-434. Bass, S. A., and Barth, M. C. (1993). The next educational opportunity: Career training for older adults. Americans over 55 at Work Program Background Paper no. 7. New York: Commonwealth Fund. Burtless, G., and Moffitt, R. A. (1985). The joint choice of retirement age and postretirement hours of work. Journal of Labor Economics, 3, no. 2, 209-236. Clark, R., Kreps, J., and Spenger, J. (1978). Economics of aging: A survey. Journal

of Economic Literature, 16, 919-962. Commonwealth Fund. (1993). Health care costs and older workers. Congressional Budget Office. (1993). Displaced workers: Trends in the 1980s and implications for the future. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Davis, K. (1991). Life satisfaction and older adults. Americans over 55 at Work Program Background Paper no. 6. New York: Commonwealth Fund. Doeringer, P. B. (1991 ). Turbulence in the American workplace. New York: Oxford University Press. Employee Benefit Research Institute. (1992). EBRI databook on employee benefits. Washington, D.C.: EBRI-ERF. Fay, C. (1994). A new look at compensation and related human resource management systems: The impact of changes on employers and employees. In C. Schneier, Managing organizational change. New York: Human Resource Planning Society. Also, Americans over 55 at Work Program Background Paper no. 10. New York: Commonwealth Fund. Harrison, B., and Bluestone, B. (1988). The great U-turn: Corporate restructuring

and the polarizing ofAmerica. New York: Basic Books. Henkoff, R. (1993). Winning the new career game. Fortune, 128, no. 1, pp. 46-49. Hogarth, T., and Barth, M. C. (1991). Cost and benefits of hiring older workers: A case study of B&Q. International Journal of Manpower, 12 (8), 5-17.

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Hurd, M. D. (1993). The effect of labor market rigidities on the labor force behavior of older workers. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper no. 4462. September. lams, H. (1987). Jobs of persons waiting after receiving retired-worker benefits. Social Security Bulletin, 50 ( 11 ), 4-19. Jablonski, M., Kunze, K., and Rosenblum, L. (1990). Productivity, age, and labor force composition changes in the U.S. work force. In Bluestone, 1., Montgomery, R. J. V., and Owen, J. D. (Eds.), The aging of the American work force (pp. 304-338). Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Kutscher, R. E., and Personik, V. A. (1986). Deindustrialization and the shift to services. Monthly Labor Review, 109 (6), 3-13. Lewis, D. V. (1990). Make way for the older worker. HR Magazine, 75-77. Louis Harris and Associates. (1991). Labor Force 2000. Study no. 902062. New York: Harris. - - . (1992). Productive aging: A survey of Americans age 55 and over. Study no. 902061. New York: Harris. Manton, K. G., Corder, L., and Stallard, E. (1993a). Changes in the use of personal assistance and special equipment: Results from the 1982 and 1989 NLrcs. The Gerontologist, 33, 168-176. - - . (1993b). Estimates of change in chronic disability and institution incidence and prevalence rates in the U.S. elderly population from the 1982, 1984, and 1989 nationallongterm care survey. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 48, no. 4, s153-s166. Marks, M. (1993). Restructuring and downsizing. In P. H. Mirvis (Ed.), Building the competitive workforce: Investing in human capital for corporate success (pp. 60-94). New York: John Wiley and Sons. McNaught, W., and Barth, M. C. (1992). Are older workers 'good buys'?-A case study of Days Inns of America. Sloan Management Review, 33, 53-63. McNaught, W., Barth, M. C., and Henderson, P. H. (1989). The human resource potential of Americans over 50. Human Resource Management, 28 (4), 455-473. Mirvis, P. H. (1993). Building the competitive workforce: Investing in human capital for corporate success. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Mitchell, 0. S., Levine, P. B., and Pozzebon, S. (1988). Retirement differences by industry and occupation. The Gerontologist, 28, 545-551. Morrison, M. H. (1990). A new look at corporate costs for early retirement: Retaining vs. retiring older workers. Washington, D.C.: National Foundation for Occupational and Environmental Health. Older Women's League. (1991). Paying for prejudice: A report on midlife and older

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women in America's labor force. 1991 Mother's Day Report. Washington, D.C.: Older Women's League. Paul, C. (1987). Work alternatives for older Americans: A management perspective. InS. H. Sandell (Ed.), The problem isn't age (pp. 165-176). New York: Praeger. Quinn, J. F., and Burkhauser, R. V. (1990). Retirement preferences and plans of older American workers. Americans over 55 at Work Program Background Paper no. 4. New York: Commonwealth Fund. Quinn, J. F., Burkhauser, R. V., and Myers, D. (1990). Passing the torch: The influence of economic incentives on work and retirement. Kalamazoo, Mich.: W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Rhodes, S. R. (1983). Age-related differences in work attitudes and behavior: A review and conceptual analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 93, 328-367. Right Associates. (1992). The new popularity of early retirement programs. The Right Report, 8, Issue 3, 2. Rosen, B., and Jerdee, T. (1977). Too old or not too old. Harvard Business Review, 55, no. 6, 97-106. Ruhm, C. J. (1991). Bridge employment and job stopping in the 1980s (Revised). Americans over 55 at Work Program Background Paper no. 3. New York: Commonwealth Fund. Tilly, C. (1991). Reasons for the continued growth of part-time employment. Monthly Labor Review, 114 (3), 10-18. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (1989). Handbook of tabor statistics. Bulletin 2430. Washington, D.C.: BLS. - - - . (1989-93). Employment and earnings. (January), Washington, D.C.: BLS. - - . (1992). Outlook: 1990-2005. Washington, D.C.: BLS, Office ofEmp1oyment Projections. U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1990). Money income and poverty status in the United States: 1989. Current Population Reports series P-60, no. 168. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. - - - . (1992). Sixty-five plus in America. Current Population Reports; Special Studies. U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C., and revised projections from U.S. Bureau of the Census P25-1092 (December 1992), 23-178. Wall Street Journal. (1993). Work and family. June 21, pp. R1-R14.

CHAPTER FOUR

Increasing Volunteering among Older People FRANCIS G. CARO AND SCOTT A. BASS

The tradition of volunteerism runs very deep in American society. From the beginnings of this country, community life has depended extensively on volunteers to perform charitable works and to operate a variety of civic and religious efforts. In fact, Alexis de Tocqueville (Mayer and Lemer, 1966), the nineteenth-century French analyst of American institutions, singled out the pattern of extensive volunteering as the key to Americans' successful democratic way of life. In de Tocqueville 's view, Americans' tendency to come together voluntarily to address community problems set this nation apart from European countries of that era. Many U.S. community services began as volunteer efforts. Susan Ellis and Katherine Noyes (1990) show how such services as law enforcement, firefighting, and nursing began as volunteer efforts. Hospitals begun under Catholic auspices, for example, frequently depended on members of religious orders for staffing. In the beginning, the nuns who served as nurses were full-time volunteers who received room and board in exchange for their services. Similarly, the early community organization societies-the forerunners of today's social casework agencies-depended on "friendly visitors," who were volunteers, to establish personal relationships with the poor (Becker, 1964). Paid staff were introduced initially on a limited basis to orchestrate the efforts of volunteers, who continued to do the majority of the work. This was also the case in law enforcement, fire protection, health care, and military defense. Only when the demand for services began to exceed the ability of volunteers to respond adequately did paid staff displace volunteers as frontline workers (Reisch and Wenocur, 1984). In some human services organizations that were once dominated by volunteers, the volunteer

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role is now largely limited to board oversight and fund-raising. Some organizations have been able to achieve a balance in eliciting significant contributions from both paid staff and volunteers. In several such organizations, including certain self-help groups, the balance of authority remains with volunteers despite the presence of paid staff. Many churches, for example, operate with a single paid minister who organizes the efforts of many volunteers. In some denominations, the minister exercises authority over volunteers; however, in others paid clergy serve at the pleasure of a volunteer board. In recent years, the call for volunteers to serve the needy has grown louder. Much more is involved than the philosophical preference for voluntary solutions to community problems espoused by the political conservatives who were ascendant in the 1980s. The decline in the country's willingness to provide funding for human services also reflects fiscal problems. Demands on human service organizations have grown as the capacity of families to meet their own needs informally has declined. The growing labor-force participation of women has forced families that can afford it to make greater use of paid services. For example, a generation ago it was much more common in middle-class families for one parent to stay at home. Now, fewer women stay at home to take care of their preschool children. Increasingly, middle-class families hire babysitters or use child-care centers so that the mother can work. In poor areas, the exponential growth of single-parent families and the increase in poverty-related problems have reduced the problem-solving capacity of families and increased the number of challenges facing them. Fundamental economic pressures and the tabor-intensive nature of human services account for additional problems (Baumol, 1967; Baumol and Oates, 1976). Increasing productivity is a basic requirement for economic growth. Because the potential for increased productivity in paid human services is modest compared to other sectors, even static paid services make ever larger claims on our overall economic resources. Government's capacity to finance services for which costs are rising is problematic at a time when available public dollars remain the same, if they do not decline. The consequence can be further cutbacks in some human service sectors in order to fund other programs (such as Medicaid) that are subject to particularly strong inflationary pressures. A revitalization of volunteering would take some pressure off families and taxpayers. But how realistic is it to hope for this resurgence? Unfortunately, middle-class women in their middle years, who used to be the core of many

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volunteer efforts, are less available than they were in previous decades. Their increased labor-force participation has led them to call increasingly upon formal services while it has reduced their own availability as volunteers. In light of the need for expanded human services without increasing costs, older people are becoming more and more attractive as a volunteer resource. Previous research has shown that people between the ages of 30 and 50 are most likely to volunteer (Fischer and Schaffer, 1993), and rates of volunteering have been traditionally lower among older people. However, recent studies have shown relatively high rates of volunteering among the youngest of the elderly; substantially reduced rates of volunteering have been found largely among those over 75 years of age (Fischer and Schaffer, 1993). Not only is the older population growing, but older people are living longer and staying healthier longer. Further, many leave the work force at relatively young ages; among American men, for example, roughly half have left the work force by age 62 (Quinn and Burkhauser, 1993). The pool of older people who are healthy and not employed is now substantial. Many older people already volunteer. To what extent can more older people be persuaded to volunteer? To what extent can those who volunteer be persuaded to do more? This chapter draws on findings of the 1991 Commonwealth Fund Productive Aging Survey, which included a factorial-design experiment designed to elicit the specific circumstances in which respondents were more and less likely to volunteer. Four attributes of volunteering were examined: recruitment method, type of cause, type of role, and reward. The number of conditions within attributes varied from four to seven. (A total of 720 combinations of vignette conditions were possible.) Each respondent was asked to rate three vignettes. In each case the following question was asked: "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely is it that you would be willing to take on the following" volunteer assignment? (0 meaning the respondent definitely would not, 10 meaning the respondent definitely would). The factorial-design experiment was administered only to those who reported that they were already volunteering or were willing to consider a volunteer assignment. The vignette content and examples of vignettes are in the appendix to this chapter. The vignettes, generated randomly by a computer, appeared on a video monitor from which telephone interviewers read questions. The specific conditions embedded in each vignette were recorded and served as independent variables

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Table 4.1. Volunteering among Older Americans Age 55-59 60-64 65-69 7(}....74 75-79 8(}....84 85 and over Total age 55 and over

31.0% 26.0 27.0 26.3 23.2 28.0 9.4 26.1

Note: Weighted data. Percentages adjusted to reflect sample underrepresentation of groups compared to 1990 Census.

in analyzing the likelihood of the respondent's volunteering. The design made it possible to detennine the effect of each condition within each attribute. When noted, the data are reported in weighted form, to compensate for the fact that the sample underrepresented certain groups of older people reported by the 1990 Census of Population and Housing on age, race, sex, and working status (Bureau of the Census).

Patterns of Volunteering One fourth (26 percent) of those 55 years of age or older reported that they were currently doing volunteer work. The extent of volunteering declined with age but not dramatically (table 4.1 ). Only among those 85 years of age or older were rates of volunteering dramatically lower than they were for those in younger age groups. These findings are generally consistent with those of contemporary national studies of volunteering among older people. A. Regula Herzog and colleagues (1989), for example, found that 30 percent of those aged 65-74 and 20 percent of those aged 75 or older volunteered. In the Marriott Senior Volunteerism study (1991 ), which surveyed a representative national sample of 962 people 60 years of age or older, 44 percent said that they had performed some kind of volunteer service in the previous year. The Marriott study percentage is probably higher than the others because respondents were asked to use the previous year

Increasing Volunteering 75

Table 4.2. Volunteering History

Never volunteered Last volunteered more than 5 years ago Last volunteered between 1 and 5 years ago Last volunteered within past 12 months Active volunteer

Total

41.6% 14.3 11.5 6.5 26.1 100.0

Note: Weighted data.

as a frame of reference, whereas the Commonwealth Fund survey asked about "current" volunteering. Because some older people may not be volunteering now but did in the past, a more sensitive way of examining volunteering may be to look at when they last volunteered. Continuity theory suggests that, among those not currently volunteering, those who volunteered in the recent past are more likely to volunteer again than those who have volunteered less recently (Chambre, 1984). Examination of respondents' recent volunteer history in the Commonwealth Fund survey reveals that 6.5 percent had terminated volunteering within the previous year and 11.5 percent had been inactive for more than one year but less than five years. However, 42 percent had never volunteered (table 4.2). What is the extent of the time commitment that older people make as volunteers? Previous studies have found that the number of hours contributed by older volunteers tends to be modest (Fischer and Schaffer, 1993). In the Commonwealth Fund survey, the typical older volunteer contributed 4 hours per week (median). (The arithmetic average was 6.3.) Herzog and colleagues (1989) found that the average effort was 1.5 hours per week, and the Marriott study yielded an estimate of 4.4 hours a week. A small percentage of volunteers contribute large numbers of hours: 8 percent contributed 20 or more hours, and 2 percent contributed 40 or more hours (table 4.3). But, overall, volunteer time contributed by older people remains modest according to available evidence. In the Commonwealth Fund survey, respondents were asked to report on their most important volunteer cause. Nearly half of the volunteering done by older people is for churches or church-related organizations (table 4.4). The list of other organizations that older people serve is diverse. The next most impor-

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Table 4.3. Volunteer Hours per Week

1-4 hours 5-9 W-19 20--29 30--39 40 or more Total

59.7% 21.0 11.8 4.5 1.4 1.6 100.0

N=859

Table 4.4. Organizations Served by Older Volunteers

Church or other religious group Hospital, nursing home, or hospice Service organizations (e.g., Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary) Senior citizen center Organization helping poor people Museum, library, art gallery, or community recreation program Elementary or secondary school Political candidate or party Campaign to influence public policy Local government Child-care program Other Total

49% 12 9 6 3 2 2

1 13 100

Note: Weighted data. N=923

tant concentration is for health-service settings (hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices). Other national studies have reported similar findings (Fischer and Schaffer, 1993). Older people carry diverse responsibilities as volunteers (table 4.5). In the Commonwealth Fund survey, the most important category of duties was direct service (tutoring, advising, coaching, providing companionship, and so on); 29 percent of volunteers in the survey were performing direct-service roles. The other important categories were working with one's hands (for example,

Increasing Volunteering 77

Table 4.5. Responsibilities of Older Volunteers

Serve people directly as a tutor, advisor, coach, companion, etc. Work with one's hands indoors or outdoors Fund-raising Serve on board or committee Work in office Drive a car, van, or truck Distribute, prepare food Skilled or technical work Answer the phone or serve as a receptionist Religious or church activities Supervise other volunteers Advocate for issues/public policy Hospital or medical activities Musical, cultural, or recreational activities Other

29.3% 22.1 16.4

11.2 10.1

8.2 7.2 6.4

5.7 4.4

3.7 3.4 3.1 2.5 10.4

Note: Weighted data. Multiple responses accepted.

decorating, cleaning, and working in the yard) (22 percent) and fund-raising (16 percent). The other volunteer roles most often reported in the study were working in an office and serving on boards or committees. Although a majority of older volunteers served a single organization, the Commonwealth Fund survey revealed that 42 percent served at least two organizations and 26 percent served three or more. Among older people, who are most likely to volunteer? Multivariate analysis reveals that active volunteering is associated with certain background characteristics. Volunteering is more common among: women; those with education beyond high school; those with professional or technical skills; those in good health; and those active in religion. These findings are generally consistent with the observations of volunteer organizers. However, the multiple regression results indicate that the apparent relationship between age and volunteering can be explained entirely by other

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variables associated with both age and volunteering. The multiple regression model was relatively strong, accounting for 21 percent of the variance. By far the most important explanatory variable in current volunteering among older people is religious activity. When this factor was excluded from the multiple regression analysis, the regression model explained only 10 percent of the variance in volunteering. This means that roughly half of the variance in volunteering that is explained by background variables is attributable to a single variable, being active in religion. What factors account for the recency of volunteering? A multiple regression analysis was performed in which volunteering history was treated as a continuous variable, with those who had never volunteered at one extreme and current volunteers at the other extreme. Older people with the following background variables were more likely to be recent volunteers. women; those with education beyond high school; those with professional or technical skills; married people; those with high incomes; those in good health; and those active in religion. Among the background variables examined, only age, race, and living alone were not associated with recent volunteering. The model was relatively strong, accounting for 25 percent of the variance. Two variables were found to be linked to recency of volunteering that were not associated with active volunteering: income and marital status. Do the contributions older people make as volunteers vary greatly? Under what circumstances do older people spend great amounts of time volunteering? For many organized efforts, the value of volunteers is proportionate to the time they contribute. To understand how background variables affect the extent of volunteering, those volunteering five or more hours per week were compared with those volunteering less than five hours per week in a multiple regression analysis. Only age was found to be associated with hours spent volunteering. Contrary to expectations, older respondents contributed more time as volunteers than did younger respondents. The 1991 Commonwealth Fund survey findings are generally consistent

Increasing Volunteering 79

with previous research on the background characteristics of older people that are predictive of volunteering. In a recent review of studies of volunteering among the elderly, Lucy Rose Fischer and colleagues (1991) reported that age, education, income, marital status, gender, and participation in religion have been found to be linked to volunteering. The finding that rates of volunteering among older Americans decline significantly only at very advanced age levels is consistent with that of earlier research. Other studies carried out over the past 30 years also found that those with higher levels of education and income, those who are married, and those who belong to a church were more likely to volunteer. Previous research findings regarding the relationship between gender and volunteering have been mixed. Research reported within the past decade has tended to find few differences between men and women in rates of volunteering. In the Commonwealth Fund survey, income and marital status were significant predictors of recency of volunteering but not of current volunteering. Fischer's review does not cover two of the variables examined here, professional or technical skills and relatively good health. Although Fischer cites evidence for the link between religious activity and volunteering, the relationship between these factors found in the Commonwealth Fund survey may be even stronger than that found in previous investigations. What accounts for the specific responsibilities that volunteers assume? Lucy Rose Fischer and Kay Schaffer (1993) point out that the pattern of relationships among background variables and volunteering may vary from one assignment to another. The Commonwealth Fund data were analyzed to determine the characteristics of older people associated with the six most frequently reported volunteer assignments: serving people directly as coach or tutor, working with one's hands, fund-raising, serving on a board or committee, working in an office, and driving a vehicle. Being active in religion was positively associated with all six roles (table 4.6). Younger respondents were more likely to be engaged in fund-raising, and older respondents were more likely to drive a vehicle. Women were more likely than men to work in an office. Higher-income people were more likely to serve on a board or committee. Higher levels of education were associated with direct-service assignments, service on a board or committee, office work, and fund-raising. Surprisingly, having professional or technical skills was associated only with being a driver. Better health was associated with direct-service assignments. The data confirm that the characteristics of individual older people are linked to the roles they perform as volunteers.

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Table 4.6. Responsibilities of Older Volunteers Background Variables

Direction of Relationship•

Education

(more)

as a tutor, advisor,

Active in religion

(more)

coach, companion, etc.

Health

(better)

Active in religion

(more)

Age

(younger)

Education

(more)

Active in religion

(more)

Education

(more)

Income

(higher)

Active in religion

(more)

Serve people directly

Work with one's hands indoors or outdoors Fund-raising

Serve on a board or committee

Work in an office

Drive a car, van, or truck

Gender

(female)

Education

(higher)

Active in religion

(more)

Age

(older)

Professional or technical skills

(possess)

Active in religion

(more)

•Based on logistical regressions.

Older people may also be differentially attracted to various volunteer causes. To attempt to find out why, multiple regression analysis was performed examining the link between background characteristics and the four most frequently reported primary causes or organizations served: religious groups, the health sector, social service institutions, and senior centers. In each case, those volunteering for a particular cause were contrasted with all other respondents. Of particular interest is the link between being active in religion and the primary causes for which older people volunteer. As expected, the data show a

Increasing Volunteering 81

Table 4.7. Background Variables Predicting Organizations Served by Older Volunteers

Religious group

Health sector

Social service institution Senior center

Background Variables

Direction of Relationship•

Gender Age Education Active in religion Gender Age Education Health Active in religion Active in religion Age

(female) (younger) (higher) (more) (female) (older) (higher) (better) (more) (less) (older)

•Based on logistical regressions.

strong link between being active in religion and volunteering for a church or another religious organization (table 4.7). The bivariate association between being active in religion and volunteering for a religious organization was particularly strong (r=.40). Being active in religion was also positively linked to volunteering for health causes. However, being active in religion was negatively associated with having a service organization as a primary volunteer cause and was not a factor in volunteering at a senior citizen center. Age predicted participation in three of the causes. Those active in religious organizations were more often female, younger, well-educated, and active in religion than the sample as a whole. Younger people, those with poorer health, and those more active in religion were more likely to volunteer for religious organizations. Older people were more likely to volunteer for a health organization or a senior citizen center. Women were more likely than men to volunteer for religious organizations and health organizations. Those with higher levels of education were more likely to volunteer for religious and health organizations. Finally, being in good health was linked to volunteering in the health sector. This examination of the relationship between background characteristics of older people and both their roles as volunteers and the causes they serve shows the importance of more detailed analyses of volunteering. However, the process

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through which these relationships are established is not clear. Older people may be differentially attracted to various assignments and causes, but coordinators of volunteer organizations may also differentially recruit and assign older people on the basis of their beliefs regarding the suitability of volunteers for various assignments. It seems reasonable that the patterns are the result of the preferences of both older people and the organizations they serve.

Reaching Willing and Able Nonvolunteers Efforts to increase volunteering among older people often focus on those who are not currently volunteering. The 1991 Commonwealth Fund survey provides some insights on the potential for activating those not currently volunteering by identifying those who are willing and able to volunteer. More than a quarter (26.4 percent) of the nonvolunteers indicated that they would consider doing volunteer work; of these, 54.3 percent indicated that they would be able to do volunteer work. Those who were both willing and able to volunteer represented 15.4 percent of the nonvolunteers and 11.7 percent of all respondents aged 55 and older. Roughly, for every two older people who volunteer, another older person reports being willing and able to volunteer-a substantial number of individuals. On a number of background variables, those willing and able to volunteer differ both from those currently volunteering and from other nonvolunteers. They differ from current volunteers in that more are men, they are more likely to be younger, they tend to have no more than a high school education, and they are less likely to be active in religion than are current volunteers. Those willing and able to volunteer differ from other nonvolunteers in that they tend to be younger, better educated, and in better health. The data suggest that organizations recruiting older volunteers among those who are not currently active can expect better success among those who are relatively young, well-educated, and in good health. However, the new recruits will have lower levels of educational attainment, will be less active in religion, and will include a higher percentage of males than current older volunteers. The Commonwealth Fund data suggest what prevents those willing and able to volunteer from doing so. Respondents were asked to rate the importance of potential obstacles to volunteering. Among the willing and able, health and job and family obligations were most often cited as barriers to volunteering (table

Increasing Volunteering 83

Table 4.8. Barriers to Volunteering among Those WUiing and Able to Volunteer Major Minor Nota Barrier Total Barrier Barrier Employment and family obligations

23.5%

27.3%

49.2%

100.0%

Health

16.9

25.6

57.5

100.0

Lack of knowledge of good volunteer opportunities

16.3

33.4

50.3

100.0

Personal expenses incurred in volunteering

15.2

30.3

54.5

100.0

Lack of skills needed to be an effective volunteer

8.5

31.0

60.5

100.0

10.5

16.1

73.4

100.0

4.9

24.4

70.7

100.0

Lack of transportation Belief that people should be paid for their work

4.8). Of particular interest from a recruitment perspective are other barriers that volunteer organizers might be able to address. Lack of knowledge about attrac-

tive volunteering assignments was cited by half of the willing and able group as either a major or a minor barrier. Expenses associated with volunteering, lack of skills needed to be an effective volunteer, lack of transportation, and the belief that people should be paid for their work were cited less frequently. The reports of obstacles suggest that improved dissemination of information about good volunteer assignments, reimbursement for expenses, training and supervision in skill development, and transportation assistance are all likely to have some effect in activating those willing and able to volunteer. Recruiting methods can be critical for both the decision to volunteer and the settings in which older people volunteer. While some people take initiative in seeking out volunteer opportunities, others respond only to a request for vol-

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Table 4.9. Vignette Ratings of Responsiveness to Recruitment Strategies Mean

Standard Deviation

Asked by community leader" Asked by friend•

5.3 5.1

3.5 3.5

Mass media appeal Newsletter

4.7 4.6

3.5 3.5

•Both personal appeals attracted more positive responses than appeals through the media (p