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To explore whether the ages of human resources (HR) managers has an impact on their perceptions of the qualities/characteristics of older and younger workers (i.e., manager attitudes) and on the implementation of age management initiatives to the benefit of older workers (i.e., manager behaviors). The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Based on theories concerning the origins of stereotypes and the concept of “in-group bias”, three hypotheses were tested on a sample of HR managers from 516 Italian companies extracted from the Gfk Eurisko database by using factor analyses and bivariate and multivariate tools.

The age of an HR manager seems to influence his/her attitudes towards older and younger workers, because HR managers judge workers of a similar age to them more positively. In contrast, the age of an HR manager does not seem to play a particular role in the implementation of age management initiatives. In the companies considered, however, there is a tendency to adopt early retirement schemes when the HR managers concerned are younger, while in general there is a tendency to implement age management initiatives and show a greater appreciation of older workers in larger companies.

The implementation of age management initiatives to the benefit of older workers may improve HR managers ' perceptions of those workers ' positive qualities. Furthermore, specific training may help HR managers recognize that both younger and older workers have useful albeit different strengths.

This study provides new empirical evidence from the Italian context on the largely under-investigated issue of the role played by age in shaping HR managers ' attitudes towards older workers, and age management policies in particular.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate older volunteers’ motivations, with special focus on country differences, considering the kind of activities carried out and age differences.

Using the Volunteer Function Inventory (VFI), the authors measured motivations to volunteer of volunteers aged 50 or older, belonging to organizations engaged in the largest activity sectors of three European countries: The Netherlands (n=468), Germany (n=113) and Italy (n=279), for a total sample size of 860 subjects.

Altruistic motivations are found to be more important for German older volunteers compared to Dutch and Italian older volunteers, but in the latter country they increase with ageing. Older volunteers engaged in selfless activities are more driven by altruistic motivations, especially in Germany and Italy, whereas egoistic motivations on selfish activities are important in all countries. As age increases, older volunteers’ emotional gratification goals are pursued especially in Italy, whereas the desire to pursue new knowledge is greater for younger‐old volunteers in general, but especially in The Netherlands.

The findings are relevant for local, national and European policy makers and NGO‐managers concerned with the issue of recruiting and retaining older volunteers – a crucial issue for promoting active ageing outside the labour market. The results show how motivations influence the decision to volunteer in later life and will enable better planning of appropriate recruitment and retention strategies.

This research represents, to the authors’ knowledge, the first cross‐national investigation based on the VFI tool to specifically analyse the motivations of older volunteers across Europe.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on organizational perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of engaging older volunteers, and on how they might best capitalize on the availability of older volunteers in different countries and sectors.

The paper draws from 74 case studies of voluntary organizations carried out in eight European countries, conducted mainly between spring 2009 and autumn 2010. On‐site interviews adopting common guidelines were carried out with organizational representatives.

From the organizational perspectives, some disadvantages of engaging older volunteers are: difficulties matching older volunteers to tasks; problems relating to health and declining capacities; the need for special training efforts. Examples of perceived advantages are: considerable knowledge, skills, experience, reliability and strong commitment of older volunteers. In spite of the very different contexts, objectives and notions of “performance”, cost‐benefit assessments of older volunteers do not differ greatly from those generally held by employers about older employees. Countries differ considerably in the recognition of older volunteer potential.

Organizational policies and initiatives to capitalize on the availability of older volunteers are examined in the paper. Country and sector‐related reflections show how different and changing are the environments for volunteering. Policy makers need to recognise these when implementing active ageing policies. Voluntary organizations should raise their awareness of the need for innovation in volunteer management, especially relating to older people.

There has been much research about the experiences of older volunteers and how they benefit from the operations of civil society organizations. The perceptions of the organizations have, however, been neglected and these are explored in this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to review good practice examples which promote recruitment and retention of older workers and/or the employability of workers as they age and to examine pathways of practice.

Analysis of qualitative data, drawing on a cross‐section selection of 83 good practice case studies in labour organisations in eight European countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the UK.

The study presented good practice examples and pathways of practice for the four most frequently found dimensions in the sample (training, lifelong learning and knowledge transfer; flexible working; health protection and promotion and job design; career development and mobility management) as well as examples from small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) (construction) and the public sector (transport) adopting strategies that fall within these dimensions. These examples show that innovative solutions to the challenge of an ageing workforce have been developed with good outcomes, often combining a number of measures, e.g. mobility management, health promotion and knowledge transfer. However, there is an uneven profile of age management debates and company strategies across Europe (with countries such as Germany and the Netherlands being more advanced). There is also some evidence of a standstill or roll‐back of measures during an economic crisis.

The paper reviews organisational measures facilitating the extension of working lives, of which many are longstanding and include sectors previously underrepresented in good practice databases (SMEs, public sector).

The purpose of this paper (overview) is to provide a brief introduction to the topic of active ageing and summarise the seven studies included in this special issue. The authors also acknowledge those who were instrumental in bringing this issue to fruition.

The International Journal of Manpower's usual double‐blind review process was used to select the seven papers included in this special issue. The papers themselves all have a cross‐national perspective using data from eight European countries. These papers represent a wide variety of designs, methodologies and analytic strategies used to study active ageing in the paid labour force as well as in civil society. The papers make use of large‐scale surveys among employers and volunteers, case studies in organisations, and vital statistics.

The findings of the studies included in this special issue provide insights into the factors and mechanisms that hamper higher participation levels of older adults in paid employment and civil society, and give suggestions on how to improve their inclusion and how to deal with an ageing workforce.

Taken as a collective, the papers in this special issue help propel forward in significant ways the study of active ageing from an international and interdisciplinary perspective.