The Older Worker, Job Insecurity, and the New Economy

In the latter part of the twentieth century, the contours of the job market and the labor force shifted in profound ways. Among die major changes are the increased prevalence of dual-earner couples, a heightened importance placed on technological skills, and a proliferation of die risk of job kxss (Beck, 2000; M(KMi and Roehling, 2005; Schmidt and Svorny, 1998). While the problem of insecure jobs is not new to those in the lower-earning sectors of the economy, the extension of the problem into professional fields and to older workers in even' sector is a recent phenomenon. The General Social Survey, a widely used national opinion poll, shows that job insecurity has been rising, especially among managers and professionals (Sweet and Meiksins, in press). The proportion who reported it was either 'S'en' likely" or "fairly likely" that they would lose their jobs within the year had doubled from 1977, one in twenty managers or professionals, to one in ten in 2002. Anodier survey, the Couples and Careers Snidy (Moen, 2003a) revealed that most higher-level workers were only about 80 percent to 85 percent confident that their jobs would exist for die next two years. Only one in four men and one in three women in this snidy were fully certain that they would bc able to keep their jobs for the next couple of years (Moen, 2003a; Moen, Sweet, and Townsend, 2001). Older workers may be at heightened risk for job loss for a variety of reasons. First, older employees are often among the highest-paid employees, which can make them particularly susceptible to personnel cuts. Also, while older workers may have unique skills that can contribute to organizational functioning (DeLong, 2004), diey also are among the most likely to lack die technological skills to match the needs of rising industries (Charness, 2006). What is more, numerous studies demonstrate that older workers are subject to ageist attitudes, arc evaluated more harshly than their younger counterparts, and are commonly perceived as being less capable or productive than younger workers (Palmore, 2005; Rupp, Vodanovich, and Cred, 2006). These concerns (and odiers) indicate that older workers may be particularly vulnerable to losing jobs in die new economy. The situation represents a sharp departure from work in the old economy, in which seniority was largely equated with security, and when companies (more often than today) held paternalistic values. And once jobs are lost, almost certainly older workers face far greater challenges in find- ing replacement jobs than do their younger counterparts. Following from these observations, this article examines job insecurity and the experiences of older workers- based on research about professional older workers in couples- from a life-course perspective. Many older workers have reached career plateaus that offer few prospects for advancement and strong prospects for downward mobility. They are caught in situations with few easy outs. They need to keep working, and they need to find work that is suited to their skills and expectations and that meets personal requirements- for example, that will not require them to make changes that would disrupt a partner's career. This article looks at older workers in couples, drawing on data from The Couples Managing Change Study. This survey, conducted in 2002, was based on hour-long telephone interviews with dual-earner couples who either recendy experienced a job loss or continued to work in insecure jobs. The objective of this study was to understand how, as a family unit, workers managed the problem of the potential job loss. All of these couples could be considered middle class and most held professional jobs-the types of jobs that in the old economy offered greater security with age. (For further information on methods, see Moen, 2003a; Sweet, Moen, and Meiksins, forthcoming.) The analysis that follows focuses on older workers age 50 and above who hold an insecure job (less than 80 percent confident that the job would be there in the next two years), or had recendy lost a job, or are linked with a spouse who is working in an insecure job or was recendy displaced. …