Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T07:56:07.741Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Older workers and employer-provided training in the Netherlands: a vignette study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2017

MARIA FLEISCHMANN  and
FERRY KOSTER
MARIA FLEISCHMANN*
Affiliation:
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College, London, UK.
FERRY KOSTER
Affiliation:
TIAS School for Business and Society, Tilburg, The Netherlands. Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
*
Address for correspondence: Maria Fleischmann, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, 1–19 Torrington Place, London WC1E 7HB, UK E-mail: m.fleischmann@ucl.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Older workers throughout Europe are increasingly expected to participate longer in the labour market. While training appears to increase workers’ employability, prior research indicates that employers are less prone to provide training with increasing age of the workers. In this study, we aim to provide a better understanding of what affects employers’ considerations. We conduct a vignette experiment among Dutch employers to investigate how the government and workers themselves can exert influence on employers’ willingness to provide training. Our analyses show that employers’ provision of training declines with workers’ age, and additionally reveal two mitigating mechanisms. First, government reimbursements appear to work as a buffer: when reimbursements are offered, the decline in employers’ willingness to offer training is less pronounced throughout workers’ careers. Second, workers’ interest in training has a delaying effect: when workers are interested in training, employers’ willingness to provide training remains rather stable until workers are aged about 55, and decreases only afterwards. This contrasts the constant decline with age when workers had no interest in training. Our findings emphasise that employers’ considerations cannot be understood without taking the context into account, because governments and workers can affect employers’ decisions through cost reduction and social exchange relations, respectively. More research is needed to disentangle other possible underlying mechanisms.

Keywords

employer-provided trainingemployabilityolder workersvignette study
Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 38 , Issue 10 , October 2018 , pp. 1995 - 2018
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, C. S. and Becker, H. J. 1978. The use of vignettes in survey research. Public Opinion Quarterly, 42, 1, 93–104.Google Scholar
Amaya-Amaya, M., Gerard, K. and Ryan, M. 2008. Discrete choice experiments in a nutshell. In Ryan, M., Gerard, K. and Amaya-Amaya, M. (eds), Using Discrete Choice. Experiments to Value Health and Health Care. Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 13–46.Google Scholar
Auspurg, K. and Hinz, T. 2015. Factorial Survey Experiments. Sage, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Barrett, A. and O'Connell, P. J. 2001. Does training generally work? The returns to in-company training. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 54, 3, 647–62.Google Scholar
Bartel, A. P. 1995. Training, wage growth, and job performance: evidence from a company database. Journal of Labor Economics, 13, 3, 401–25.Google Scholar
Bassanini, A., Booth, A., Brunello, G., De Paola, M. and Leuven, E. 2005. Workplace training in Europe. IZA Discussion Paper 1640, Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn, Germany.Google Scholar
Becker, G. S. 1964. Human Capital. National Bureau of Economic Research, New York.Google Scholar
Belloni, M. and Villosio, C. 2015. Training and wages of older workers in Europe. European Journal of Ageing, 12, 1, 7–16.Google Scholar
Billett, S., Dymock, D., Johnson, G. and Martin, G. 2011. Overcoming the paradox of employers’ views about older workers. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 22, 6, 1248–61.Google Scholar
Bishop, J. H. 1996. What we know about employer-provided training: a review of literature. CAHRS Working Paper 7-1-1996, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.Google Scholar
Borghans, L., Fouarge, D. and de Grip, A. 2011. Een leven lang leren in Nederland. ROA-R-2011-5, Researchcentrum voor Onderwijs en Arbeidsmarkt (ROA), Maastricht.Google Scholar
Branham, L. 2001. Keeping the People Who Keep You in Business: 24 Ways to Hang on to Your Most Valuable Talent. American Management Association, New York.Google Scholar
Brooke, L. and Taylor, P. 2005. Older workers and employment: managing age relations. Ageing & Society, 25, 3, 415–29.Google Scholar
Canduela, J., Dutton, M., Johnson, S., Lindsay, C. and Raeside, R. 2012. Ageing, skills and participation in work-related training in Britain: assessing the position of older workers. Work, Employment and Society, 26, 1, 42–60.Google Scholar
Chui, W. C. K., Chan, A. W., Snape, E. and Redman, T. 2001. Age stereotypes and discriminatory attitudes towards older workers: an east–west comparison. Human Relations, 54, 5, 629–61.Google Scholar
Cropanzano, R. and Mitchell, M. S. 2005. Social exchange theory: an interdisciplinary review. Journal of Management, 31, 6, 874–900.Google Scholar
De Vries, S., Gründemann, R. and Van Vuuren, T. 2001. Employability policy in Dutch organizations. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 12, 7, 1193–202.Google Scholar
Eurostat 2015. Eurostat's Demography Database. Eurostat, Luxembourg.Google Scholar
Fleischmann, M., Koster, F. and Schippers, J. J. 2015. Nothing ventured, nothing gained! How and under which conditions employers provide employability-enhancing practices to their older workers. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 26, 22, 2908–25.Google Scholar
Ganong, L. H. and Coleman, M. 2006. Multiple segment factorial vignette designs. Journal of Marriage and Family, 68, 2, 455–68.Google Scholar
Gazier, B. 2001. Employability – the complexity of a policy notion. In Weinert, P., Baukens, M., Bollérot, P., Pineschi-Gapènne, M. and Walwei, U. (eds), Employability: From Theory to Practice. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Greenhalgh, C. and Mavrotas, G. 1994. The role of career aspirations and financial constraints in individual access to vocational training. Oxford Economic Papers, 46, 4, 579–604.Google Scholar
Groot, W. and Maassen van den Brink, H. 2000. Education, training and employability. Applied Economics, 32, 5, 573–81.Google Scholar
Hancock, L. 2006. Mature workers, training and using TLM frameworks. Australian Bulletin of Labor, 32, 3 257–79.Google Scholar
Hansson, B. 2008. Job-related training and benefits for individuals. A review of evidence and explanations. OECD Education Working Paper 19, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris.Google Scholar
Henkens, K. 2005. Stereotyping older workers and retirement: the managers’ point of view. Canadian Journal on Ageing/La Revue canadienne du vieillissement, 24, 4, 353–66.Google Scholar
Henkens, K., van Solinge, H. and Cozijnsen, R. 2009. Let go or retain? A comparative study of the attitudes of business students and managers about the retirement of older workers. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 39, 7, 1562–88.Google Scholar
Hofäcker, D. and Unt, M. 2013. Exploring the ‘new worlds’ of (late?) retirement in Europe. Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, 29, 2, 163–83.Google Scholar
Kalleberg, A. L., Knoke, D., Marsden, P. V. and Spaeth, J. L. (eds) 1996. Organizations in America: Analyzing Their Structures and Human Resource Practices. Sage, Thousand Oaks, California.Google Scholar
Karpinska, K. 2013. Prolonged Employment of Older Workers. Determinants of Managers’ Decisions Regarding Hiring, Retention and Training. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Karpinska, K., Henkens, K. and Schippers, J. 2011. The recruitment of early retirees: a vignette study of the factors that affect managers’ decisions. Ageing & Society, 31, 4, 570–89.Google Scholar
Karpinska, K., Henkens, K., Schippers, J. and Wang, M. 2015. Training opportunities for older workers in the Netherlands: a vignette study. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 41, 103–12.Google Scholar
Knoke, D. and Kalleberg, A. L. 1994. Job training in U.S. organizations. American Sociological Review, 59, 4, 537–46.Google Scholar
Mathieu, J. E. and Zajac, D. 1990. A review and meta-analysis of the antecedents, correlates and consequences of organizational commitment. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 2, 171–94.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, T. F. and Tropp, L. R. 2006. A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 5, 751–83.Google Scholar
Picchio, M. and Van Ours, J. C. 2013. Retaining through training even for older workers. Economics of Education Review, 32, 1, 29–48.Google Scholar
Posthuma, R. A. and Campion, M. A. 2009. Age stereotypes in the workplace: common stereotypes, moderators, and future research directions. Journal of Management, 35, 1, 158–88.Google Scholar
Schilling, J. and Larsen, M. 2011. How ‘flexicure’ are old Danes? The development of social inequality in later life since the 1980s. In Blossfeld, H. P., Buchholz, S. and Kurz, K. (eds), Aging Populations, Globalization and the Labor Market. Comparing Late Working Life and Retirement in Modern Societies. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA, 149–77.Google Scholar
Sutherland, J. 2016. Inequalities in the distribution of training in Britain. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 37, 3, 469–91.Google Scholar
Taylor, P. and Urwin, P. 2001. Age and participation in vocational education and training. Work, Employment and Society, 15, 4, 763–79.Google Scholar
Taylor, P. E. and Walker, A. 1994. The ageing workforce: employers’ attitudes towards older people. Work, Employment and Society, 8, 4, 569–91.Google Scholar
Taylor, P. E. and Walker, A. 1998. Employers and older workers: attitudes and employment practices. Ageing & Society, 18, 6, 641–58.Google Scholar
TNO Monitor arbeid. 2015. NEA Benchmarktools. Available online at http://www.monitorarbeid.tno.nl/cijfers/nea [Accessed 3 October 2016].Google Scholar
Torraco, R. J. 2000. A theory of knowledge management. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 2, 1, 38–62.Google Scholar
Van Dalen, H. P., Henkens, K., Henderikse, W. and Schippers, J. 2006. Dealing with an ageing labour force: what do European employers expect and do? NIDI Report 73, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, The Hague.Google Scholar
Van Dalen, H. P., Henkens, K. and Schippers, J. 2009. Dealing with older workers in Europe: a comparative survey of employers’ attitudes and actions. Journal of European Social Policy, 19, 1, 47–60.Google Scholar
Van Dalen, H. P., Henkens, K. and Schippers, J. 2010. Productivity of older workers: perceptions of employers and workers. Population and Development Review, 36, 2, 309–30.Google Scholar
Van Dalen, H. P., Henkens, K. and Wang, M. 2015. Recharging or retiring older workers? Uncovering the age-based strategies of European employers. The Gerontologist, 55, 5, 814–24.Google Scholar
Veldwijk, J., Lambooij, M. S., de Bekker-Grob, E. W., Smit, H. A. and de Wit, G. A. 2014. The effect of including an opt-out option in Discrete Choice Experiments. PLoS ONE, 9, 11, e111805.Google Scholar
Wallander, L. 2009. 25 Years of factorial surveys in sociology: a review. Social Science Research, 38, 3, 505–20.Google Scholar