Welfare, Work, and Aging

This chapter critically examines the development of recent policy and theoretical issues concerning the “extension of working lives” for older people in the UK. It grounds its analysis in ideas from the “risk society” thesis to explore how the matrix of population aging, job, and pension changes impinges on shifting emphasis on increasing the retirement age coupled with individualizing pensions from state provision to a focus on self-responsibility via private provision. This neo-liberal re-positioning of extending work and pension policy has implications for the management of risk for older people in the UK. The chapter explores the impact of population aging on government ideas associated with social policy relating to extending working lives. It concludes with an assessment on the lessons policy makers and social policy analysts can learn from such shifts and impact on the social construction of age.