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Some of these issues have been delineated through a series of narrative interviews with older workers and guidance workers carried out across a range of projects by researchers at the IER, University of Warwick. The themes arising draw upon notions of 'semi-retirement' and 'personal career re-definition'. The former can be seen as a way of easing the transition from work to full retirement. Semi-retirement is associated with self-employment, with employees moving from permanent to fixed- or short-term contracts, with a reduction in working hours and with a move away from people's main line of work (see also: Department for Work and Pensions Research Report No 200 'Factors affecting the labour market participation of older workers' by Humphrey, Costigan, Pickering, Stratford and Barnes (2003)). The latter notion could be illustrated in the major career shifts illustrated in the 'case histories' of older workers. The implications of this for education, training and guidance were in line with those found by Ford (2005) 'Am I still needed? Guidance and learning for older adults, University of Derby, Centre for Guidance Studies): 'guidance services that older adults find particularly helpful are mainly highly personalised and people- focused initiatives that combine a range of guidance and learning activities into an integrated service.'

Older workers’ careers: upskilling, reskilling and transitions

Preview Info - ECER 2006 Ageing paper final.doc - 266.50 Kb

Older workers’ careers: upskilling, reskilling and transitions ECER 2006 paper by Sally-Anne Barnes, Jenny Bimrose and Alan Brown We have narrative biographies of over fifty older workers, but in this paper we present details of nineteen exemplary cases. We examined eight ways of representing the work-related learning, careers and identities of older workers: • work-based upskilling from within work • part-time education-based upskilling (through mid-career professional development) • reskilling following redundancy • change in employment status following redundancy • downward drift following redundancy • career transition following a career break • education-based reskilling following a career break • downward drift following spell unemployed