The older health and social care labour force in England: characteristics, work patterns and policy implications

Abstract

Along with population ageing, the health and social care labour force is also growing older. However, despite evidence of the characteristics and factors that relate to older workers in general, there is a dearth of empirical evidence relating specifically to the older health and social care labour force (aged 50 years and over).

With rising longevity, there is increasing demand for efficient and effective health and social care provision that is delivered by a skilled, experienced and capable labour force. To manage such demand, the Government introduced measures under the extending working lives (EWL) agenda to encourage older workers to remain in work for longer. These measures included the removal of the default retirement age, increases to the State Pension Age (SPA), and the development of anti-discriminatory legislation.

This thesis furthers our understanding of the characteristics of this labour force aged 50 years and over, and establishes factors that are associated with the decision to work part-time at and beyond the SPA. Using merged cross-sectional data (2009-2013) from the Labour Force Survey (N=10,123), descriptive and multivariate (binary logistic regression) analyses were conducted.

The results indicate that the older health and social care labour force comprised individuals aged 50 and 84 years and that the majority (86 per cent) were women. Among this labour force, 48 per cent worked as health and care professionals and 52 per cent were employed as health and care support staff. The findings show that the likelihood of working part-time increased with increasing age. For example, among individuals aged 65 to 69, and those aged 70 years and over, the odds of working part-time at and beyond the SPA were 2.26 and 3.34 times respectively the odds among those aged 60 to 64. Ethnicity, marital status and earnings were also found to be significantly associated with working part-time at the SPA and over. Under the auspices of EWL, these results have important implications for national and organisational policy development, and for the development of effective workforce planning in health and social care.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Maria Evandrou: orcid.org/0000-0002-2115-9358

ORCID for Athina Vlachantoni: orcid.org/0000-0003-1539-3057

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