Premium
Recent public policy and Australian older workers
Author(s) -
Taylor Philip,
Earl Catherine,
McLoughlin Christopher
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
australian journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1839-4655
pISSN - 0157-6321
DOI - 10.1002/j.1839-4655.2016.tb00375.x
Subject(s) - workforce , project commissioning , public policy , population ageing , government (linguistics) , context (archaeology) , work (physics) , publishing , welfare , economic shortage , business , population , social policy , public economics , public relations , economic growth , economics , political science , sociology , engineering , law , mechanical engineering , market economy , paleontology , linguistics , philosophy , demography , biology
This article considers the characteristics and utility of pro‐work policies targeting Australian older workers that have emerged in the context of population ageing, amid concerns that this will lead to labour shortages and an increasing social welfare burden. There has been a recent surge in public policy regarding the ageing workforce, the efficacy of which has not been tested by evaluation studies. After considering the conceptual foundations and objectives of various government initiatives, it is argued that the present public policy approach may have serious flaws that are not only detrimental to the stated overall objective of prolonging working lives, but may, in fact, be harmful to older workers and fail to address the needs of business. This stems from programs reaching only a small proportion of those older people who would potentially benefit from assistance, and from misdirected effort aimed at encouraging behavioural change on the part of employers or industries. It is argued that there is a need for greater targeting of policy efforts on the actual needs of industry and for public policy itself to become more age‐aware.