The 10th European Conference of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association University of Amsterdam 20-22 June 2013 Regulating Ageing and Work (Work in progress – not for citation) Therese MacDermott, Macquarie Law School Macquarie University, Australia 1. INTRODUCTION The need to more fully utilize the economic potential of older workers is a key social policy concern in many developed countries, both in the European Union and elsewhere. However, overcoming barriers to the participation of older workers and implementing pro-active measures to facilitate and sustain the participation of older workers presents particular regulatory challenges. While equality and non-discrimination principles apply to workplace age discrimination, the area is not necessarily perceived in the same way as other attributes subject to equality legislation. In addition, the human rights case for proscribing age discrimination is not always on its own an adequate motivational factor for employers to deal with systemic age discrimination or to implement pro-active measures. This need to deal with workplace age-related issues is often portrayed as more appropriately a subject of economic labour market regulation, rather than a core human rights concern and a social rights issue. Regulating ageing at work does involves broad economic and fiscal factors such as how to manage an ageing population, dealing with skills shortages, determining the appropriate timing of access to superannuation and pensions, and the need to maintain a broad tax base of working persons to meet future community costs. These factors point to the need to extend the participation of mature age workers in paid employment and to minimize workplace discrimination against mature age workers. They also require specific legislative responses in other areas such as social security laws, taxation systems, and superannuation and pension entitlements. However many countries struggle to set in place the appropriate balance between prohibitions on discriminatory conduct and incentives to implement pro-active measures to facilitate and sustain the participation of older workers. This paper examines measures introduced in a variety of countries to deal with the regulation of ageing and work. It critiques both soft law and hard law approaches to regulation in this area, and assess the impact of these various strategies in a comparative context. It looks at recent endeavours to secure better compliance and attitudinal change within workplaces through regulatory structures that provide incentives for the voluntary adoption of positive measures, underpinned by proscriptive requirements. Finally, assesses the interaction between equality law regimes and other legislative areas such as social security laws, taxation systems, and superannuation and pension entitlements within the complex regulatory arrangements necessary to deal with ageing and work.
The 10th European Conference of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association University of Amsterdam 20-22 June 2013 Regulating Ageing and Work (Work in progress – not for citation) Therese MacDermott, Macquarie Law School Macquarie University, Australia 1. INTRODUCTION The need to more fully utilize the economic potential of older workers is a key social policy concern in many developed countries, both in the European Union and elsewhere. However, overcoming barriers to the participation of older workers and implementing pro-active measures to facilitate and sustain the participation of older workers presents particular regulatory challenges. While equality and non-discrimination principles apply to workplace age discrimination, the area is not necessarily perceived in the same way as other attributes subject to equality legislation. In addition, the human rights case for proscribing age discrimination is not always on its own an adequate motivational factor for employers to deal with systemic age discrimination or to implement pro-active measures. This need to deal with workplace age-related issues is often portrayed as more appropriately a subject of economic labour market regulation, rather than a core human rights concern and a social rights issue. Regulating ageing at work does involves broad economic and fiscal factors such as how to manage an ageing population, dealing with skills shortages, determining the appropriate timing of access to superannuation and pensions, and the need to maintain a broad tax base of working persons to meet future community costs. These factors point to the need to extend the participation of mature age workers in paid employment and to minimize workplace discrimination against mature age workers. They also require specific legislative responses in other areas such as social security laws, taxation systems, and superannuation and pension entitlements. However many countries struggle to set in place the appropriate balance between prohibitions on discriminatory conduct and incentives to implement pro-active measures to facilitate and sustain the participation of older workers. This paper examines measures introduced in a variety of countries to deal with the regulation of ageing and work. It critiques both soft law and hard law approaches to regulation in this area, and assess the impact of these various strategies in a comparative context. It looks at recent endeavours to secure better compliance and attitudinal change within workplaces through regulatory structures that provide incentives for the voluntary adoption of positive measures, underpinned by proscriptive requirements. Finally, assesses the interaction between equality law regimes and other legislative areas such as social security laws, taxation systems, and superannuation and pension entitlements within the complex regulatory arrangements necessary to deal with ageing and work.