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.

The changing retirement landscape calls on employers to develop practices that respond to individuals’ retirement needs. Line managers are a key stakeholder in managing retirement and this study focuses on how they respond to employee retirement scenarios. This empirical work examines manager openness to involvement in retirement, focusing on three sets of explanatory variables: manager psycho-social characteristics (experience of managing older workers, intention to work past 65), their decision-making environment (influence, discretion and decision-making support) and older employee situational factors (performance, ease of replacement, retirement affect and attitude to work). Data were collected from 129 managers in the United Kingdom's university sector using survey items and a factorial vignette design. The multi-level analysis found support for each category of variables in predicting manager openness to involvement in employee retirement. Managers with more experience of managing older workers were more likely to be open to involvement although managers’ own retirement intentions were not significant as a predictor. Decision-making environment variables were significant predictors of manager openness to involvement. The only older employee situational factor that was associated with manager openness to involvement was employee performance. Practically, organisations need to recognise the potential influence that managers have on employee retirement decisions and this study's findings show that managers may need training to help them understand their own role in supporting older employee retirement.

In this article we present the results of a panel survey in which 242 men aged 40 to 55 were followed for approximately seven years after they became involuntarily unemployed. The study focused on reintegration probabilities of the older workers and on the question of their reaction to a situation of prolonged unemployment. The study shows that if policy is not changed, the probability of the reintegration of older, long-term unemployed persons into the labour force will remain extremely low. Re-entry via a ‘normally’ functioning labour market (formal application procedures and official job intermediaries) takes place almost exclusively during the first year after dismissal. If a new job is not found, a resigned feeling occurs among almost all of this older unemployed group. Most of the older people adjust to the new circumstances sooner or later. If one wishes to protect older persons from the trap of long-term unemployment (and in many cases total exclusion), more rapid interventions must be made, and reorientation and retraining efforts must be started sooner, before it is ‘too late’. From the employer’s point of view, there is not much interest in those who are still unemployed after one year.