Hila Axelrad, Alexandra Kalev and Noah Lewin-Epstein
Higher pensionable age in many countries that are part of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and a shrinking pension income force older people to…
Abstract
Purpose
Higher pensionable age in many countries that are part of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and a shrinking pension income force older people to postpone their retirement. Yet, age-based discrimination in employers' decisions is a significant barrier to their employment. Hence, this paper aims to explore employers' attitudes regarding the employment of workers aged 60–70, striving for a better understanding of age discrimination.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 30 managers, experts and employees in retirement age in Israel.
Findings
Findings reveal a spectrum of employers' attitudes toward the employment of older workers. The authors' analytical contribution is a conceptual typology based on employers' perceived ability to employ older workers and their stated attitudes toward the employment of older workers.
Social implications
The insights that emerge from this research are fundamental for organizational actors' ability to expand the productive, unbiased employment of older workers.
Originality/value
By understanding employers' preferences and perspectives and the implications on employers' ability and/or willingness to employ older workers, this research will help policymakers formulate and implement policy innovations that address these biases.
Details
Keywords
The changing patterns of female labour force participation, the strategies women use to juggle work and family life, public policy regarding women's employment and the impact of…
Abstract
The changing patterns of female labour force participation, the strategies women use to juggle work and family life, public policy regarding women's employment and the impact of all these for equal opportunity, are analysed for the Israeli situation.
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Keywords
The difficulties that MR poses for comparativists were anticipated 40 years ago in Sidney Verba's essay “Some Dilemmas of Comparative Research”, in which he called for a…
Abstract
The difficulties that MR poses for comparativists were anticipated 40 years ago in Sidney Verba's essay “Some Dilemmas of Comparative Research”, in which he called for a “disciplined configurative approach…based on general rules, but on complicated combinations of them” (Verba, 1967, p. 115). Charles Ragin's (1987) book The Comparative Method eloquently spelled out the mismatch between MR and causal explanation in comparative research. At the most basic level, like most other methods of multivariate statistical analysis MR works by rendering the cases invisible, treating them simply as the source of a set of empirical observations on dependent and independent variables. However, even when scholars embrace the analytical purpose of generalizing about relationships between variables, as opposed to dwelling on specific differences between entities with proper names, the cases of interest in comparative political economy are limited in number and occupy a bounded universe.2 They are thus both knowable and manageable. Consequently, retaining named cases in the analysis is an efficient way of conveying information and letting readers evaluate it.3 Moreover, in practice most producers and consumers of comparative political economy are intrinsically interested in specific cases. Why not cater to this interest by keeping our cases visible?
Stefanie Ruel, Iiris Aaltio, Tarja Römer-Paakkanen and Banu Ozkazanc-Pan