Downshifting - a strategy for longer working careers

Introduction  Ageing plays an increasingly important role in the European working life. Between 2005 and 2030, the number of people aged 65 and over will rise by 52.3 per cent, while those aged between 15 and 64 will decrease by 6.8 per cent. As a result, the dynamics of the society will change. Older workers (55-64) are urged to stay at work for longer due to dependency and other pension system crises, heightened by current economic decline and crises. Different strategies have been invented to encourage people to stay for longer at work. One such strategy is called downshifting at different life stages. For women, two life stages are important: first when the children are small and second when own parents need help. The aim of this paper is to present the results of a European study on how women in particular combine working and family at differnt life stages. Six European countries (Italy, Finland, Germany, the UK, Lithuania and Latvia) participated in the project.    

Methods  Action-research methodology was applied in order to help participants learn from their own experiences. In each country, 4 persons were interviewed, altogether 32 interviews were collected and analyzed. In addition, 7 video films were made on good practices. In Finland, such good practice was a video on Downshifting.    

Results and discussion  The results show that women in particular but increasingly also men value a good work-life balance as a health resource which helps them to lengthen their work careers. Very few are prepared to sacrify their family life for working long hours at work. The results are presented so that the good practices developed during the project can be benefited by using the so called bottom-up approach by which the employees themselves are encouraged to bring new ideas into their own workplaces.