Title: Policies for longer working lives: understanding interactions with health and care responsibilities
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: In recent decades, the proportion of older people in the United Kingdom who are in paid work has been steadily rising. In 2000, 60% of 50-64 year olds were employed and by 2015, 70% of them were. The proportion of people aged 65 and over in paid employment has doubled over the same period, from around 5% to 10%. Growth in the size of the older population over this period means the increases in the numbers of older individuals in paid work are even greater. With an ageing population, and policy reforms that are encouraging people to remain in work longer, it is important to understand the broader effects of longer working lives on the older population. Our research focuses on two important factors related to longer working lives. The first is the effect on health. Do people who work longer into their 60s have lower health because of their extended working life? Or does work (and the income associated with it) allow people to live healthier, more active lives? This question is hard to answer because simply observing that workers are healthier/less healthy than non-workers tells us little about the causal effect of work on health. Health and employment can be related in a complicated way. The fact of working may improve or worsen a person's health. But, at the same time, people may be less likely to work if they are already unwell: for example because pain prevents them from doing the job they used to, or want to, do. Our research will look directly at the effect of working longer on health by using a reform which increased the employment of older workers, without having any direct effect on health. This reform was the increase in the state pension age for women. The second factor that we will examine is the interaction between work and caring, using a model that incorporates a large range of factors that affect the health, income and wealth of the older population. We will use this to understand the factors affecting the need for and receipt of social care (informal care, publicly-funded formal care, and privately-funded formal care). We will also model the supply of informal care - that is, who provides care, and how much they provide (in terms of number of hours per week). We will then use the model to understand the interaction between people's decisions to be in paid work and the decision to provide informal care. Underlying all the research that we do will be the idea of how the effects of working lives can differ for different people, and how they might reinforce or ameliorate existing inequalities in health and income. This means we will not only look at the effect of longer working lives on one type of health, but a range of measures, and understand the behaviours that might have positive or negative impacts on health. We will look at the groups of the population that might be affected differently. In terms of care, we can see whether it is particular types of people who are in greater need of care, and who end up providing care, in particular the differences by income and sex. All of the research outlined in this proposal is being undertaken in parallel with researchers in France, Germany and Denmark. Together we form one consortium. Our European partners are also academic researchers who have intricate knowledge of the public policies affecting older people in their countries. By studying similar questions in each country, we will be able to increase our understanding of these issues by examining behaviour and outcomes in different policy settings. This will help policymakers understand the impacts of government policies across Europe.


Research activity codes: 8.3 POLICY, ETHICS AND RESEARCH GOVERNANCE
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE