Ageing Labour Forces – Promises and Prospects, edited by Philip Taylor, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2008, 240 pp., ISBN 978-1-845424-25-1.

In the current widespread debate about how to deal with demographic ageing, particularly in the economically advanced countries, this provocative book addresses in a comprehensive manner the changing status of older workers, public policy responses to it and their diverse motivations – putting too often emphasis on the economic dimension – public deficits and the sustainability of pensions – rather than the welfare of older workers. It examines the current emphasis by policy makers on delaying retirement and, taking account of employers’ attitudes and behaviour towards older workers, raises the critical question of whether the latter can look forward to the prospect of longer working lives with choice and security and, hence, for making successful transitions to retirement. Analyzing anti-discrimination legislation and practice, active ageing, employment policy, the gender dimension and the attitudes and behaviour of the various actors, it challenges the validity of the claim that older workers are on the threshold of a new ‘golden age’ of job openings and flexible retirement. The book contains eight case studies of industrialized countries – Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, the UK and the US – carried out by an interdisciplinary team of thirteen academics from these countries. The book starts with a brief overview of the recent history of older workers and discusses the changing policy landscape, following decades of early exit, and the growing awareness of the impact of demographic ageing on the public purse, the competitiveness of the economy, society and … the individual. From the outset, the authors point to three major problems faced by many older workers, namely society’s preference for youth, the tacit and sometimes overt support by European governments to employers wishing to discharge older workers, and older workers themselves who sometimes help perpetuate ageist myth (by considering retraining unnecessary or that they are too old to retrain, or that age is a barrier to employment even if it is not). Paradoxically, retirement age has been lowered at a time societies have been ageing. Europe and Japan, whose population are most rapidly ageing, increasingly consider this issue as strategic, though it is on the policy agenda across the industrialized countries (and beyond!) - with increased awareness that the economic future depends on meeting the challenges of an ageing society with its concomitant shrinking labour force which can only partially be offset by immigration. Overall participation rate could fall by 4-5 percentage points for the OECD on average between 2000 and 2005, implying increasing dependency ratio of the population and the escalating costs of supporting a growing inactive older population. Hence the recent shift away from the rhetoric and action of early retirement – which became common in the second half of the 20^th century – towards ‘active ageing’. The huge scale of early labour market exit over the past decades explains the emphasis on ‘active’ employment policy in the European Union and the vision and the participation rate targets of the Lisbon, Stockholm and Barcelona councils (2000-2002). The authors note a few positive signs towards these targets, but on the whole progress remains modest, with the generous disability and unemployment programmes which continue to provide generous early retirement. Moreover, UK and France have high levels of non-work for people aged 55-59. By contrast, US and Japan have low levels of non-work for this cohort and a high implicit tax on work at older ages. The authors scrutinize the motives and behaviour of the key actors against the backdrop of older workers’ labour force participation, the kind of jobs that they hold, the difficulties they encounter to retain their jobs or find …