Results and conclusions of research into gradual retirement. At the Mid-term conference in Norway, in June 2013 the research team presented the current situation of I-age regarding data collection and data analysis. Students presented an up-to-date poster about the research.
The aging population faces two conditions that threaten healthy aging: high fat mass (obesity) and low muscle mass and function (sarcopenia). The combination of both—referred to as sarcopenic obesity—synergistically increases the risk of adverse health outcomes. The two conditions often co-occur because they reinforce each other and share common etiologies, including poor nutrition and inactivity. All aging people are at risk of gaining weight and losing muscle mass and could benefit from improvements in physical activity, exercise and dietary intake. one specific window of opportunity is during the transient time of retirement, as older adults already need to restructure their daily activities. It is key to change lifestyle behavior in a sustainable manner, providing scientifically proven, personalized, and acceptable principles that can be integrated in daily life. Health technologies (e.g., applications) can provide promising tools to deliver personalized and appealing lifestyle interventions to a large group of people while keeping health care costs low. Several studies show that health technologies have a strong positive effect on physical activity, exercise and dietary intake. Specifically, health technology is increasingly applied to older people, although strong evidence for long term effects in changing lifestyle behavior is generally lacking. Concluding, technology could play an important role in the highly warranted prevention of sarcopenic obesity in older adults. Although health technology seems to be a promising tool to stimulate changes in physical activity, exercise and dietary intake, studies on long lasting effects and specifically targeted on older people around the time of retirement are warranted.
One of the most important societal trends affecting our workplace and workforce in the following decade concerns the combination of a smaller number of younger workers relative to their older counterparts, and the current ‘early exit’ culture in Europe. Because of the staff shortages and possible knowledge loss (e.g., Calo 2008; Joe et al. 2013) that may accompany these demographic changes, there is a strong financial reason to retain and sustain ageing employees at work (Kooij et al. 2014; Truxillo and Fraccaroli 2013). In order to respond to today’s labour market needs, many governments have chosen to increase the official retirement age to 66 or even higher. In the Netherlands, for example, retirement age will be gradually raised to 66 years in 2019 and to 67 years in 2023. Other European Union countries have similar plans to steadily raise their retirement ages to 67 years in 2023 (France), 2027 (Spain), or 2031 (Germany). In the UK and Ireland, the retirement age will increase to 68 in 2028 (Ireland) and in 2046 (the UK). However, the reality of older workers’ current employment does not yet match these political ambitions. According to figures collected by the European Union Labour Force in the European Union Labour Force Survey (Eurostat 2014), the EU-28 (i.e., average of the 28 European Union countries) employment rate for persons aged 15–64 was 64.1 per cent in 2013. However, when looking more closely at the country level or when differentiating between age categories, the active labor participation of older European employees does not appear to be as high. The EU employment rate of older workers—calculated by dividing the number of persons in employment and aged 55–64 by the total population of the same age group—was 49.5 per cent in 2013 (OECD 2014), whereas the OECD average was 54.9 per cent in the same year. In the USA and Korea, for example, employment rates of workers of 55–64 years old were, respectively, 60.9 per cent and 64.3 per cent in 2013.
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