Passageways & Caravans: A Resource-Based Approach to Understanding Structural Constraints on Successful Aging at Work

Abstract

Extending labour force participation has emerged as a popular strategy to address the challenge of ageing population structures. However, successfully prolonging labour force participation requires increasing the number of older workers who remain in the labour force and ensuring these older workers are able to effectively contribute at work. Willingness and ability to continue engaging in work at older ages is also known as successful aging at work.

This thesis argues that current perspectives on successful aging at work are agency-centric and need to better recognise limits to the agency of older workers. A cross-disciplinary literature review is used to establish the structural constraints on successful aging posed by resource antecedents. The individual, organisational and institutional structural factors that operate across a person's life to shape their resources are called resource passageways. The combinations of different types of resources available to a person - financial, social, physical, psychological, cognitive, knowledge, skill, and time - are referred to as their resource caravans. The relationships between resource passageways, resource caravans and successful aging at work are explored via three empirical studies.

Study 1 uses qualitative life histories of older Australian workers who have worked in jobs of low occupational status. The study explores resources in late working life, how lifetime work and social experiences (resource passageways) have shaped these resources, and the role these resources play in shaping behaviours in late career work. It identifies eight resource types salient for older workers in the sample and seven distinct combinations of resources (resource caravans). The seven resource caravans are mapped against differences in willingness and ability to continue working at older ages, as well as goal engagement behaviours.

Study 2 uses data from the national Household Income and Labour Dynamics Australia (HILDA) panel survey and a cross-sectional latent profile analysis (LPA) to investigate resource caravans and their influence on successful aging outcomes. Consistent with Study 1, it finds that social (gender, marital status) and work (decent work indicators) factors predict membership of diverse resource caravans in late working life.

Study 3 used HILDA data and longitudinal growth mixture modelling (GMM) to explore patterns of 'decent' work- work that is fulfilling, safe, and offers fair pay, control, opportunities for skill use and development, and sociable hours - and the role of these resource passageways on resource and successful aging outcomes. Consistent with the findings in Study 2, membership of trajectories where work is perceived to be more decent over time results in higher resources across a range of resource types.

This research makes two key theoretical contributions: (1) a person-centred approach to resources, successful aging, and decent work; and (2) an articulation of the multi-level structural constraints on older worker agency. From a practical perspective, the research can assist older workers in identifying their own resource caravans to achieve their desired goals. Organisations can better manage older workers through targeted interventions to address resources, while governments can extend labour force participation by developing policies that recognise the diversity of resources in the older working population.