Title: Bilateral (Hong Kong): Age Diversity: Applying the Capabilities Approach to Career Development Across the Life Course
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: Both the UK and Hong Kong face ageing populations which are impacting upon labour supply, economic development and the sustainability of the two respective social security systems Employers in both contexts predominantly adopt a youth-centric approach to career development, channeling resources toward developing younger and newer employees. Future approaches to career development will need to focus on enhancing and maintaining employees' skills throughout their working lives as well as making better use of their formal, tacit and experiential knowledge. Because of this, the EU, ILO, UN and WHO have each noted that employers will need to shift from a youth-centric approach to career development towards one which provides opportunity for development and fulfillment across the life course. Life course trajectories and where employees are situated in terms of employment, family, care and education may be better indicators than age alone in identifying when and what kind of support employees need in order to make best use of their abilities. Because, in both a UK and Hong Kong context, dialogue on career development and appraisals reside predominantly at the workplace level, a transition from youth-centric to life course approach can be most effective through engagement with line managers and employees themselves. Sen and Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach (CA) has been used extensively as a metric for measuring both the pervasiveness and depth of economic development, particularly the extent to which human development opportunities extend to women, and is best known as the framework for the United Nations Human Development Report. This project will consider the extent to which the Capabilities Approach can be used to measure the pervasiveness and depth of career opportunities for workers across the life course and as a means to improved career development processes. In particular, it will focus on the support which employers can provide to enable older workers to extend working life through fulfilling and productive careers. In partnership with the UK Employer's Forum on Age and Hong Kong Community Business, the project team will work with managers and employees in four workplaces (two each in the UK and Hong Kong) to investigate the extent to which the CA can be applied to managing careers across the life course through both quantitative and action research based research methods. The UK team will develop an online survey of skills, knowledge and abilities of workers across the life course; their career aspirations and work orientations; and the support which they need to make best use of their abilities. The survey will be based on previous research carried out by the UK PI and CI on knowledge management, work orientation, age and life course. The aim is to produce a platform with which employers can map the abilities of employees and develop strategies for fostering their potential. The team will also develop an action research based module to enable older workers to work with their line managers in developing innovative approaches to career development based on CA, and focused particularly on measures to enable older workers to delay retirement and remain economically active in fulfilling and productive careers. The Hong Kong team will lead a cross comparison of the approaches which UK and Hong Kong employers, public policy makers, unions and other stakeholders are taking to address the age demographic challenge. This includes interviews with national stakeholders, senior HR managers in the four case study organizations and a literature review. The aim is to assess the impact of institutional, cultural and legal contexts of the UK and Hong Kong on career development across the life course and management of change.


Research activity codes: 1.2 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC PROCESSES
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE