The Influence of World War II-Experiences on Today's Older Workers

Older workers are at the center of many current policies. These workers' activity is essential for maintaining a sufficiently large and well-qualified workforce, and for ensuring a sound financial basis of pension schemes. Therefore, policymakers encourage older people to work. However, policies to this aim meet some challenges because older people are not only influences by current development. Instead, they are also subject to life-course influences, meaning the on-going effects of past experiences. This presentation explores the life-course effects of World War II (WWII)-experiences on older workers. These experiences are, e.g., a soldier or a prisoner of war during WWII. The life-course effects of WWII-experiences can function through three main mechanisms. First, the career interruption created by WWII may have a scarring effect similar to the one of unemployment spells, and thus influence the further career progression. Second, generational membership influenced how individuals experienced WWII, and it also influenced which historical developments of the labor market people participated in. Third, WWII-experiences can influence health status, personality and world view, which in turn, influence the decision on when to retire. This presentation answers two questions: Do WWII-experiences affect workforce participation in old age? Does the effect depend on the timing of these experiences within the life-course? I conduct a sequence analysis with data from the “Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe” and the “English Longitudinal Study of Ageing”. The analysis determines life-course differences according to, e.g., gender, and generational membership. Moreover, the analysis explores how labour market structures and retirement policies modify life-course effects by comparing countries: Germany, Finland, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Findings help to refine theories on old age, life-courses, and the labour market. Moreover, they help policymakers in countries that recently participated in a war to design more effective policies for older workers.