Temporary exit from employment throughout the life course: An alternative to retirement to challenge ageism and sexism

Introduction

In recent decades, two major changes have taken place in industrialized societies. The first of these is the decline in patriarchal domination which, together with changes in information and communication technologies, has been described as the most important revolution of our times, since it penetrates the whole of society, and because it is irreversible (Castells, 1996: 160; Solé, 1998: 257–261). The second change is the ageing of the population, a socio-demographic shift leading to an increased presence of older members, a phenomenon that should not become a serious problem so long as the appropriate social and economic policy measures are taken (Schoenmaeckers and Kotowska, 2005). The institutionalization of retirement occurred before the onset of these changes. It was based, on the one hand, on a relatively young demographic structure in which old age was a minority phenomenon, and on the other hand, on the sexual division of labour in which paid work was done by men and unpaid domestic work, by women. The traditional three-stage life course (education, employment, and retirement) can thus be considered androcentric. At the same time, domestic work continues to be done by people, mainly women, who are not paid for their labours and who do not retire. The alternative we discuss in this paper proposes a radical break with this model and opens up new possibilities and, logically, new risks; further in-depth interdisciplinary research is therefore required to uncover the complex relationships among the wide range of consequences the proposal entails.

The idea of temporary paid leave from work throughout the life course is not a new one. Riley (1979) proposed abolishing differentiated periods for education, work and leisure based on age in order to allow opportunities for combinations of all three aspects throughout the whole life course. Some years later, in light of the risk of social exclusion occasioned by retirement, Guillemard (1992: 165) proposed that the retirement pension need not necessarily be accumulated in the final stage of life, but could be redistributed over different stages of the life cycle. Currently, the European Union recognizes the issue as one for socio-political debate. In a context of structural change in which the education and retirement life stages are becoming longer and the period of paid employment is shrinking, there is a growing need to establish parallel working and non-working periods, whether for family reasons, for retraining to prepare for a second or third career, or for other reasons, which would imply prolonged employment activity at later stages in workers’ lives (Naegele et al., 2003: 26 onwards). Other current research priorities in Europe include the employability of older people, and collective versus individual responsibility in retirement planning (Van Soest, 2010: 26–27).

However, it is our impression that these proposals have received scant consideration in both academic and political circles. This lack of attention may well be related to the deeply rooted cultural hold that the institution of retirement and the sexual division of labour both enjoy. Government proposals to raise the retirement age are met with opposition from progressive sectors of society arguing that it represents a social cut, but few voices are heard criticizing the institution of retirement itself as a mechanism of control and social exclusion on the grounds of sex and age. Our proposal is an alternative, not a cut. By establishing the right to temporary, paid exit periods throughout the life cycle, working-class men and women would be empowered, since they would have a greater autonomy and capacity to negotiate such a fundamental question as how to organize their work and retirement time throughout their lives. In this respect the idea shares certain elements with the concept of a universal basic income; both can be argued for on the basis of the concept of freedom as autonomy (Seguí-Cosme and Alfageme, 2008). These questions take on particular relevance in today’s global context in which states and the working class are losing power to capital.

Arguments from the sociology of ageing perspective

The conception of old age as a differentiated life stage is highly debatable, even taking into account certain processes that may be considered natural. Following the functionalist theory of Cumming and Henry (1961), for example, the acceptance of a certain degree of disengagement in cases of relatively advanced ageing does not justify the formal establishment of retirement from employment or from any other activity. Any solution of this type is always a simplification, which does not combine well with liberty, rationality and the variety of capabilities characteristic of all individuals. Neugarten (1996) makes some interesting contributions in this vein, particularly in defending the idea that age does not imply need, and even that age in itself may be socially irrelevant. Indeed, the term ageism (Butler, 1969; Augus and Reeve, 2006), in parallel with sexism and racism, is used to refer to a range of social discriminations against older people.

These positions have given rise to resolute criticism of retirement as a social policy. For many decades, the theories of structured dependency of older people (Walker, 1980; Townsend, 1981) and of the political economy of ageing (Minkler and Estes, 1984) have questioned retirement policies and their repercussions in that they act as instruments of control, excluding people over a certain age from important spheres of social life such as paid work, and decisively contribute to the social construction of old age. There has been no purposeful development, however, of practical alternatives. In our view, retirement would be an indisputable social achievement if it were not conditioned by age and if it were not final in character. Periods of work and retirement could be combined throughout adult life according to people’s wishes, needs and capabilities, rather than being based on the criterion of age. Attending to this social diversity obviously represents a challenge for governments since it is more complex and difficult to control. In addition, the scant research on employers and older workers suggests that there are complex relationships between attitudes and practices, and highlights the need for non-discriminatory policies (Loretto and White, 2006). Eliminating retirement would not eradicate prejudice against older people, but it would create a favourable legal framework to deal with it.

The concept of ‘successful ageing’ (Rowe and Kahn, 1998) has emerged in an attempt to overcome the idea of passivity underlying traditional policies for older people. This is a multi-dimensional concept (physical, psychological and social), and views older people as healthy and active. In a similar line, the thesis of ‘productive ageing’ (Bass and Caro, 2001) highlights the variety of productive activities, in the widest sense of the term, that older people can and do perform. Critical gerontology, however, disputes the scope of these proposals. The model of satisfactory ageing is questioned on the grounds that it is conceived from the perspective of the most favoured sectors of society, and ignores those who are already on the margins, particularly older women, the poor and ethnic minorities (Holstein and Minkler, 2003). Its underlying proposal for the social integration of older people is also questioned, particularly in voluntary activities, for example, as though they were activities or lifestyles more suited to older people (Martinson and Minkler, 2006).

From the life-course perspective, it is increasingly clear that retirement does not coincide with the onset of ageing, particularly following the growth of early retirement. Rather, we are witnessing the social construction of a new life stage, the midcourse stage, understood as the time between retirement and old age, and favoured by phenomena such as increased life expectancy, ambiguity around the timing of retirement, and other historical reasons such as the ageing of large baby-boomer cohorts of increasingly better educated individuals with improved health status (Moen, 2006). In practice, European countries are attempting to restrict access to early retirement and to confront the marginalization of older workers resulting from their early exit from the labour market, although there are notable differences among countries (Mirabile, 2004). In most of Europe, pre-retirement has spread without much exploration of alternative approaches. However, in countries with more developed employment integration policies such as Norway and Finland, work and welfare are directly linked, even in the case of older people. People’s health status and capacities are taken into greater consideration when pensions are allocated, for example, and training and employment reintegration are encouraged through more active policies.

The diversity of attitudes people have to retirement is well known. Some anxiously look forward to retirement while others dread it, attitudes that are related to job satisfaction throughout life. Economic need condemns many people to stay in unsatisfying jobs until they reach the official retirement age; our proposal opens up the possibility of regulating periods of temporary exit from employment in order to continue with education or training, perhaps with a view to embarking on a new professional career.

The abolition or deferment of retirement would undoubtedly ignite the debate about who should be given priority in the job market (now shrunken and with little hope of improvement in most of Europe): older or younger people. Again, we do not believe simplification is a useful way forward. The debate should not be about deciding in favour of one group over another on the mere grounds of age; people’s desires and capacities must obviously also be taken into account. Critical gerontology has frequently denounced the situation in which young and old are forced to compete in a context of structural unemployment, the roots of which should be sought in the contradictions of the economic system (see, for example, Kuhn, 1990).

Argumentation from the gender perspective

The human capacity for procreation and the consequent need to devote time to bringing up children takes up much of adult life, coinciding approximately with the life stage that in the conventional life-course regime in industrialized societies corresponds with paid employment. In order to ensure that these reproductive tasks are carried out, women have been explicitly or implicitly excluded from educational institutions and from paid work, and their dedication to domestic work has been considered ‘natural’ or ‘necessary’, and as a result, unpaid (Himmelweit, 1995). Today, women in rich western countries do much less domestic work; however, it is carried out by other women, immigrants from poorer countries, such that the traditional sexist and classist pattern remains unbroken (Oso, 1998: 356).

On the other hand, a relatively high proportion of women do not face arbitrary and abrupt retirement and its associated trauma on grounds of age (Beauvoir, 1989: 316–317; San Román, 1990: 164–165). Obviously this relative advantage is something that happens to women, rather than something they actively seek. It is important to keep in mind the idea we are concerned with in our analysis, namely that gender inequalities are closely linked to the social organization of the life course. This negatively affects both men and women, although in different ways and with different consequences: many women are excluded from paid work, many men are excluded from domestic work, and both sexes lose autonomy under this system. In effect, the combination of social inequalities on the grounds of age, sex and other factors is manifest in processes of varying degrees of complexity that merit further analysis (see for example, Calasanti and Slevin, 2001).

The proposal for temporary exits from work throughout the life course has consequences for men and women of all ages. If people were given the chance, through recognized and socially promoted policies, to organize their lives in ways other than the conventional three-stage pattern, they would probably do so on a variety of occasions. Take, for example, the parents of newborn babies, or couples considering starting a family, who want to spend their time caring for their children; or those who decide to care for others, such as dependent parents or other elderly relatives. Caring should be considered a human value, beyond the considerations of gender roles (Comins, 2007). We are simply considering people who choose to withdraw temporarily from their paid activities in order to take up other equally important and necessary activities.

There is room for a general feminist critique of most social policies aimed at enabling and enhancing the work–life balance (Carrasco, 2003; Carrasquer, 2009; Campillo, 2010), since in practice women are more likely to make use of social resources, and are also more likely to put their professional careers to one side and thus maintain the sexual division of labour. The very strength of the patriarchal tradition is often sufficient reason to justify more decisive intervention to counteract it. In the case in hand, there may be certain circumstances in which periods of temporary exit from employment might even be considered obligatory for both men and women, particularly where family needs arise. This course of action may indeed be easier to defend and justify than forced retirement, which has frequently been exposed as arbitrary and exclusive. Indeed, in practice many retired men and women end up performing domestic tasks such as caring for their grandchildren while their own children are at work, a situation that hinders structural change towards non-sexist family roles (Freixas, Luque and Reina, 2009). The voluntary nature of temporary exits should, however, remain as a central element of the proposal, and any obligatory aspects should only be included as a transitory social strategy (along the lines of positive discrimination policies).

We are fully aware that no social policy can bring rapid change to such a deeply rooted cultural tradition as the sexual division of labour. Indeed, certain attitudes and values prove to be very persistent (Scott, 2006). As in the case of ageism, legal frameworks must be designed in such a way to ensure that equality is feasible, and therefore more probable. We believe that the alternative discussed here differs substantially from other social policy advances in the European Union, such as paid maternity leave or the various family and carer allowance models. These policies provide direct economic support, albeit limited, for the tasks they set out to protect (care of dependants, in most cases children). Temporary paid exit throughout the life course, however, would be a right (or even an obligation) linked directly to paid work, that would facilitate a more egalitarian access to paid work. Moreover, regardless of what most men might use it for, temporary exit would especially benefit many women by allowing them to plan their lives, and significantly, facilitate their access to paid work. It is important to note that women are the key players in the new family models – either on their own or in negotiated living arrangements – that have been increasingly gaining ground on the traditional nuclear family in Europe and North America in recent years. The temporary exit proposal becomes meaningful in a context in which the role of women as exclusive carers is gradually disappearing, because of either personal wishes or necessity.

Above all, it should be understood that by considering these temporary exits as a basic need, we are clearly recognizing, among other things, the central role of domestic work in everyone’s lives, in families and in societies. Temporary exit from employment goes much further than any other work–life balance policies, since it breaks with the conventional androcentric life-course regime, although, as we point out above, it would only provide a new legal framework, and as such, would be insufficient to alter deep-rooted gender attitudes and behaviours. Both the practice of and research into gender equality policies must therefore be continued in earnest.

On regulation and the social consequences of temporary exits

The proposals put forward to date still retain the institution of retirement. A good reference is the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions report, A New Organisation of Time over Working Life (Naegele et al., 2003). What these authors call leave options are used to meet a series of needs workers and their families face (childcare, caring for other people, training or professional needs), on a voluntary basis and under certain established conditions. The report also clearly states that alternative approaches – flexible working hours, part-time work, or what are termed working-time accounts (time worked without remuneration in order to build up longer periods of time off when needed) – are insufficient to cover needs that require longer periods out of employment (several years in many cases). The same report proposes using part of the retirement pension provisions to finance periods of temporary exit from work in earlier life phases, implicitly encouraging continued working at later ages.

Our proposal is to deliberately eliminate the concept of final retirement above a specified age. Every individual with continuous, regulated access to paid employment would have the right to take time out of work throughout their working life, and at the same time the rights to a retirement pension on grounds of age would disappear. Obviously, the right to disability allowance, whether temporary or permanent, would be retained and would become particularly relevant (this represents a problematic aspect of the proposal, since formal recognition of incapacity will never be as objective as a simple cut-off age). There is a great deal of room for manoeuvre in this proposal, which clearly requires a thorough economic analysis. It should be noted that total expenditure would not alter significantly. An individual working for 40 years under the conventional system retires at 65 and lives, on average, for a further 15 years, during which time he or she receives a retirement pension, time which could be distributed throughout the person’s life course rather than being concentrated exclusively at the end. Priority rights could also be regulated according to certain needs or personal circumstances such as training or caring for other people. The allowance received would necessarily be lower than the salary earned during periods of employment (in similar proportions to the retirement pension).

Given the complex relationships between variables such as age, employment and health, the fine tuning of the calculations is no easy task. Nonetheless, we believe that this proposal is viable and could be more sustainable than age-related retirement, since it is based on an established system of maximum exit periods in proportion to periods in paid work. Hence, governments would make timely modifications to this proportion in accordance with availability of economic resources; for example, proportions might oscillate between two or three year temporary exit periods for every eight or ten years in paid employment. At the same time, the question of whether temporary exits not taken during this eight or ten year period of employment would be carried over into the next period is open to debate. If the right to temporary exit was not accumulative, policy-makers would clearly and decidedly be promoting the idea of temporary retirement throughout the life course, and not only at more advanced ages. Furthermore, in periods of heavy unemployment, compulsory periods of temporary exit could be established in an attempt to share out limited existing jobs. It is precisely in times of economic crisis that new ideas and transformations are crucial.

An analysis of the viability of this proposal must also consider the fact that disabilities – and health problems in general – are more likely to occur in later stages of life. Although there is no cause–effect relationship between age and disability, and although most older people enjoy good health and are very capable, the statistical correlation cannot be ignored, and it must be taken into consideration in any regulation of temporary exit and the right to benefits in general. People with recognized incapacity for work would receive a different type of benefit – unrelated to the temporary exit system – a situation that is more likely to arise at advanced ages. There would therefore be increased spending in cases of individuals who had previously benefited from considerable periods of temporary exit and who then found themselves unable to work for reasons of poor health or disability; these people would receive a disability allowance, as well as the financial support they had already enjoyed during their temporary exit periods. Some people might also choose to take as many temporary exit periods as possible during early stages of their lives (when disability is less likely) with a view to optimizing their rights to all types of allowance – temporary exit or disability – throughout the life course. For these reasons, temporary exit options should be constrained to a maximum of two or three years for every eight or ten years worked, for example, with restrictions on the periods that can be taken during earlier life stages.

An additional effect would be that the perception of the process of demographic ageing as ‘problematic’ could be diluted within the general dynamic of work and retirement throughout the life cycle, with social protection on the grounds of health or disability taking on greater relevance. Related to this, recent studies on human longevity have found significant improvements in the health status of the new cohorts of older people, which would explain the compression of morbidity (Robine and Michel, 2004). There is significant consensus that one of the challenges for medicine today is to enable people to enjoy good health until the end of their lives, which, with a view to the future, weakens the justification for age-based retirement.

A further question concerns one of the most controversial aspects of temporary exits from employment, namely, the return to paid work; many people may be reluctant to leave their job on a temporary basis if they do not have a reasonable chance of coming back to it at a later date. Numerous possibilities for intervention may be explored to overcome this problem. For example, depending on the reasons behind the temporary exit, regulations might guarantee the return to the same job. This would be particularly appropriate in cases where exit periods are used to care for others, and would clearly contribute to greater equality between men and women, as we have argued above. Whatever the case, even if no guarantees are in place, it would seem likely that people with less satisfying jobs would be more willing to take greater risks, perhaps by using the exit period to prepare for a new career. Temporary withdrawal from paid employment must be seen as an opportunity and a source of well-being rather than a risk. The bottom line is that all those who wish should have the chance to plan their lives autonomously with regard to relevant aspects such as formal education and training, paid work, domestic work, preparation for a new job, leisure, etc.

Our proposal for temporary exits from employment throughout the life course has other consequences for greater equality as well as those mentioned above. For instance, people from the least favoured sectors of society who have had no choice but to start work at an early age tend to recognize the importance of education too late; this could be redressed if real possibilities for formal lifelong learning were in place, guaranteed by establishing sufficiently long temporary periods of paid exit from employment. In addition, the proposal would lead to a reduction in the number of people (most of whom are likely to be from lower social classes) who do not enjoy long periods of paid retirement to which they are entitled because they die at a relatively early age. The cost of these two improvements would automatically be borne by the general population.

Finally, we would like to advance some arguments against a possible negative image of older people being forced to work because they have enjoyed the benefits of paid exits earlier in their lives. On the one hand, research suggests that continuing to work into old age helps most people to maintain their levels of general well-being (Calvo, 2006). Leaving aside the retirement debate, this should not come as any surprise to those who advocate ‘satisfactory’, ‘active’, or ‘productive’ ageing. At the same time, the perception of retirement as chosen rather than obligatory has a profound effect on psychological satisfaction of people of all ages (Van Solinge, 2005; Calvo, Haverstick and Sass, 2007). In reality, all those who have no capital are forced to work. The right to receive an allowance without working, whether temporary or permanent, could depend not on age but on attested incapacity for work, and on the needs and desires of individuals throughout their lives. However, one notable finding in the research is that while most people recognize the growing need to extend the working life beyond the traditional retirement age, very few are themselves willing to continue working into advanced life stages (Van Dalen and Henkens, 2005). On this point, it seems logical to accept that people who have worked for the most part of their lives, with the expectation of retiring permanently at the age of 60 or 65 and without having benefited from the new temporary exit proposals debated here, have acquired the right to a traditional retirement pension, and will not readily accept the deferment of their retirement. Clearly, far-reaching reforms of this nature involve transition periods when old and new situations will overlap. The alternative we are debating will not affect today’s older people, but those of the future.

In line with our proposal, any real contribution to overcoming sexism, ageism and other social inequalities can only be made if progressive social demands refrain from focusing their efforts on retaining the retirement age. Instead, through the structural change implied in this temporary exit alternative, demands could centre on defending a reasonable proportion of periods taken out of employment throughout the whole life cycle.