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Lookup NU author(s): Professor David Lain
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
In policy debates it is commonly claimed that older workers are entering a period of choice and control. In contrast, Guy Standing’s (2011) book The Precariat argues that older people are increasingly joining the ‘precariat’, by taking low-level jobs to supplement dwindling pension incomes. We argue that many older workers, not just those in “precarious jobs”, feel a sense of ‘ontological precarity’. Pressures to work longer, combined with limited alternative employment prospects and inadequate retirement incomes, give rise to a heightened sense of precarity. We develop a new theoretical model for understanding precarity as a lived experience, which is influenced by the intersection between precarious jobs, precarious welfare states and precarious households. This model is then illustrated using qualitative research from two UK organisations: Local Government and Hospitality. In both organisations older workers experienced a sense of ontological precarity because they worried about the long-term sustainability of their jobs and saw limited alternative sources of retirement income. Household circumstances either reinforced interviewees’ sense of precarity, or acted as a buffer against it. This was particularly important for women, as they typically accrued smaller financial resources in their own right. Our concluding discussion builds on this more advanced theoretical understanding of older worker precarity to call for a rethinking of state and employer support for decisions around later-life working and retirement.
Author(s): Lain D, Airey L, Loretto W, Vickerstaff S
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Ageing & Society
Year: 2019
Volume: 39
Issue: 10
Pages: 2219-2241
Print publication date: 01/10/2019
Online publication date: 01/10/2018
Acceptance date: 04/09/2018
Date deposited: 05/09/2018
ISSN (print): 0144-686X
ISSN (electronic): 1469-1779
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X18001253
DOI: 10.1017/S0144686X18001253
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