Many countries have implemented policies to extend working lives in response to population ageing, yet there remains little understanding of what drives paid work in later life, nor how this is changing over time. This paper utilises the 1988/89 Survey of Retirement and Retirement Plans, the 1999 British Household Panel Survey and the 2008 English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, to investigate drivers of paid work in the ten years surrounding state pension age (SPA) for women and men in, comparing cohorts born in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Using optimal matching analysis with logistic and multinomial regression models, the study assesses the relative importance of lifecourse histories, socio-economic circumstances and contemporaneous factors, in determining paid work in mid- and later life. Participation in paid work in the five years preceding and beyond SPA increased markedly for men and women across cohorts, with women's lifecourses and engagement with paid work changing considerably in these periods. However, for women, a lifetime history of paid work remained a crucially important predictor of paid work in later life, and this relationship has strengthened over time. Experiencing divorce has also become an important driver of paid work around SPA for the youngest cohort. Having children later, and still having a mortgage, also independently predict labour force participation for women and men. Across all cohorts and for women and men, working at these older ages was a function of higher income and better health. These findings suggest that policies which enable people to maintain ties to paid work across the lifecourse may be more effective at encouraging later-life employment than those concerned only with postponing the retirement transition.

In light of a large proportion of older workers leaving the German labour market in the near future, policy makers aim to extend working lives to ensure sustainability of the social security system. In this context, safe and healthy working conditions are considered a precondition for encouraging employment participation. To understand better the role of the work environment in pre-retirement years, we draw upon an established model of five job quality profiles for the German ageing workforce. We explored seven-year profile development and linked selected manual and non-manual job quality trajectories to the motivation to work (MTW) using data from the 2011, 2014 and 2018 assessments of the lidA cohort study (valid N = 2,863). We found that older workers shifted to physically less-demanding profiles. Individual profile stability was prevalent among one-third of the workers. In 2018, there was a higher MTW when job quality remained favourable or improved early, while later improvements were associated with lower MTW. Early deterioration of job quality was associated with lower MTW levels among workers with non-manual trajectories only. The results highlight the dynamic job quality situation of the older German workforce and the importance of adopting a person-centred perspective when investigating working conditions and its effects. They further underline the need to consider quality of work when designing and implementing strategies to extend working lives.

Ageism is a widely used term that is not (yet) well understood. We propose a redefinition of ageism and to separate it from ableism. We believe this to be important as remedies may depend on whether someone is experiencing ageism or ableism. While focusing the discussion on older workers as a sub-group of older people who (can) experience ageism, we assess the usefulness of critical (feminist) disability studies for ageism research. We hope that redefining ageism and analytically separating it from ableism (without suggesting that both concepts should be studied independently from one another) will provide guidance for researchers who study ageism and will allow for more specific policy guidance on how to solve difficulties experienced by older workers.