Sustainable Work in an Ageing Perspective, Gender and Working Life Course

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter develops a gender perspective on older workers’ working life courses and yields a contrasting picture of ageing at work. If gender disparities are the outcome of widely differing work situations for women and men they are also influenced by the unequal distribution of domestic work and the tasks of caring both for older and younger generations. Men and women’s working life courses and trajectories are embedded in institutionalized pathways and normative patterns. They participate in the world of work with specific position and defined social role. The chapter shows how working trajectories impact on health among the over-50s, and changing workforce exit norms. Finally, it points out the need to take account of gender-differential career and non-career paths and to redress the inequalities and injustices in this area. The analytical framework of this chapter relies on the concept of sustainable work considered from a life span perspective. The analysis uses data of the last wave of the European working conditions survey (2015).