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In this study, we employ 'hidden workers' as a key concept to integrate the three vulnerable subgroups of aging workers: underemployed, unemployed, and discouraged workers. (1) Background: The challenges faced by underemployed, unemployed, and discouraged workers in the older population are complex. It would be beneficial to visualize the intellectual landscape of these three distinct groups in aging populations to understand which aspects have been highlighted by various disciplines and where gaps exist. (2) Method: Through a scientometric analysis of more than 50 years of research, this study identified the size, scope, and structure of knowledge on hidden workers in an aging population using 2831 articles collected from the Web of Science database in January 2024. (3) Results: Indeed, the multidisciplinary nature of hidden workers goes beyond welfare and labor economics and involves issues such as health, occupational science, behavior change, policy interventions, and circles around the keyword of unemployment. Keyword co-occurrence and co-citation analysis confirm that the spectrum of research on hidden workers is being carried out distinctly within distinct disciplines across the broader aging research horizon. (4) Conclusions: The relatively scattered and uneven intellectual, conceptual, and social landscape of research on hidden workers in aging populations evidently falls short of providing concerted policy recommendations for the population group. This study provides a conceptual understanding of hidden workers in different research clusters and identifies gaps and opportunities for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hidden workers are defined as the three vulnerable subgroups of workers: the underemployed, the unemployed, and the discouraged workers. Hidden workers indeed the group with multiple identities; a transitioning retiree, jobseeker, caring for some, who may also have long term health conditions and ethnic minority all at the same time. Designing an intervention for this group necessitates the transdisciplinary knowledge. Transdisciplinary knowledge is crucial because it can inform how the intersectoral challenges might be addressed in interventions, and how the intersectoral implementation design and evaluation on hidden workers might be designed. This paper maps the intellectual landscape of the hidden workers in aging population literature to identify key disciplinary research clusters; and to find out how those research clusters are investigating hidden workers. With the meta-narrative review methodology on studies retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection, five research clusters were identified: (1) public health approaches to hidden workers, (2) welfare state and aging workforce, (3) older jobseekers, (4) life course perspective, (5) retirement transitions. Each research cluster focuses on different aspects of hidden workers, with varying research questions and rationales. These include conceptualising the determinants of the hidden workers in aging populations and the complex interrelation with public health. Furthermore, we suggest an analytical framework to allow for better understanding between the research traditions based on (1) the chosen socioecological level of analysis, (2) whether the research question is on the determinant for hidden workers or on the outcome of being hidden and (3) the chronosystem (early/middle/later life) timeframe of research question that is addressed. Through this study, we can identify the main issues faced by hidden workers among the older adults and the measures to address these issues as well as opening up a possibility for cross-sectoral policy responses.

In this study, we employ ‘hidden workers’ as a key concept to integrate the three vulnerable subgroups of aging workers: underemployed, unemployed, and discouraged workers. (1) Background: The challenges faced by underemployed, unemployed, and discouraged workers in the older population are complex. It would be beneficial to visualize the intellectual landscape of these three distinct groups in aging populations to understand which aspects have been highlighted by various disciplines and where gaps exist. (2) Method: Through a scientometric analysis of more than 50 years of research, this study identified the size, scope, and structure of knowledge on hidden workers in an aging population using 2831 articles collected from the Web of Science database in January 2024. (3) Results: Indeed, the multidisciplinary nature of hidden workers goes beyond welfare and labor economics and involves issues such as health, occupational science, behavior change, policy interventions, and circles around the keyword of unemployment. Keyword co-occurrence and co-citation analysis confirm that the spectrum of research on hidden workers is being carried out distinctly within distinct disciplines across the broader aging research horizon. (4) Conclusions: The relatively scattered and uneven intellectual, conceptual, and social landscape of research on hidden workers in aging populations evidently falls short of providing concerted policy recommendations for the population group. This study provides a conceptual understanding of hidden workers in different research clusters and identifies gaps and opportunities for future research.

We present a meta-evaluation of the literature on the impacts of active labour market policies for unemployed people over 50, extracting 82 impacts for analysis. The meta-evaluation includes only impact evaluations that examine both a group of beneficiaries and a control group of comparable non-beneficiaries. On average, we find that active policies have a slightly negative effect (−0.8 percentage points) on the probability of unemployed people over 50 finding a job and that this negative effect disappears 24 months after policy implementation. However, this effect is very different when disaggregated by policy type. Direct job creation policies have a clear negative effect (−3.9 percentage points), and training policies have a positive average effect, either in isolation (2.4 percentage points) or when combined with search assistance or counselling (1.7 percentage points). We also find slight differences by gender, with the effect of active policies being greater for women than for men. These results have important implications, given that the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have made active policies the cornerstone of their efforts to improve the re-employment of older people. Our results support training policies, either in isolation or in combination with search assistance and counselling. The greatest impacts are obtained after 12 months of policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hidden workers are defined as the three vulnerable subgroups of workers: the underemployed, the unemployed, and the discouraged workers. Hidden workers indeed the group with multiple identities; a transitioning retiree, jobseeker, caring for some, who may also have long term health conditions and ethnic minority all at the same time. Designing an intervention for this group necessitates the transdisciplinary knowledge. Transdisciplinary knowledge is crucial because it can inform how the intersectoral challenges might be addressed in interventions, and how the intersectoral implementation design and evaluation on hidden workers might be designed. This paper maps the intellectual landscape of the hidden workers in aging population literature to identify key disciplinary research clusters; and to find out how those research clusters are investigating hidden workers. With the meta-narrative review methodology on studies retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection, five research clusters were identified: (1) public health approaches to hidden workers, (2) welfare state and aging workforce, (3) older jobseekers, (4) life course perspective, (5) retirement transitions. Each research cluster focuses on different aspects of hidden workers, with varying research questions and rationales. These include conceptualising the determinants of the hidden workers in aging populations and the complex interrelation with public health. Furthermore, we suggest an analytical framework to allow for better understanding between the research traditions based on (1) the chosen socioecological level of analysis, (2) whether the research question is on the determinant for hidden workers or on the outcome of being hidden and (3) the chronosystem (early/middle/later life) timeframe of research question that is addressed. Through this study, we can identify the main issues faced by hidden workers among the older adults and the measures to address these issues as well as opening up a possibility for cross-sectoral policy responses., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Lee and Kang.)

The public opinion literature has found that the age of the benefit recipient is an important determinant in the formation of welfare state attitudes. Older people are perceived as more deserving of help and also punished less for not accepting a job. We argue that such a preferential treatment of older people depends on the social and economic context. In this article, we examine public support for demanding active labour market policies in 21 European countries. Relying on a survey experiment varying the age of the unemployed person, our analysis confirms that older unemployed are punished less than younger unemployed for not accepting a job offer. However, this effect varies between countries and our evidence suggests that support for exempting older individuals from demanding active labour market policies disappears as societies age. Moreover, support for stricter sanctions in general is higher in countries with a higher unemployment rate and in countries that already have rather strict active labour market policies. These findings question the public's role as a veto player in the reform process as it seems unlikely that public opinion will block attempts to further strengthen demanding active labour market policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intensified counseling, job search assistance and related policies have been found to be effective for labor market integration of the unemployed by a large number of studies, but the evidence for older and hard‐to‐place unemployed is more mixed. In this paper, we present key results for a large‐scale active labor market program directed at the older unemployed in Germany. To identify the treatment effects, we exploit regional variation in program participation. We use a combination of different evaluation estimators to check the sensitivity of the results to selection, substitution and local labor market effects. We find positive effects of the program in the range of 5–10 percentage points on integration into unsubsidized employment. However, there are also substantial lock‐in effects, such that program participants have a higher probability of remaining on public welfare benefit receipt for up to 1 year after commencing the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article is a qualitative examination of how older workers who lost their jobs during the Great Recession and its prolonged recovery employed religion to cope with this stressful experience. Based on 62 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with middle-class adults age 50 or older, our data reveal five distinct themes in relation to religious coping with the job-loss experience: faith as solace, surrendering to God, meaning making, discontent with God or believers, and gaining strength from religious community. Findings are placed in the context of the broader religious coping literature and several empirical and applied implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a considerable number of studies have focused on factors driving employees to voluntarily participate in training programs, much less is known on this topic with regard to the unemployed population, in particular the older unemployed, who often are in a vulnerable labor market position due to educational deficits and skills obsolescence. This study proposes and investigates a serial mediator model of older unemployed individuals' training intentions grounded in propositions from social cognitive theory and the theory of planned behavior as well as prior models of employee involvement in training. The results, based on cross-sectional questionnaire data from 176 unemployed Portuguese individuals aged 40+, suggest that age, education, and proactivity have an indirect effect on training intentions via learning self-efficacy and training-related outcome expectations. Age was also directly related to stronger training intentions. These results may be useful for interventions aiming to encourage older unemployed individuals' participation in training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our purpose is to examine the level of reservation wages among older unemployed (45+), and investigate what happens to the level of reservation wages as the length of unemployment increases. Using data from questionnaires completed by unemployed, we examined the reservation wages of 364 individuals and asked whether they would be willing to compromise in terms of their occupation, profession or geographic location to find a job. 112 of the participants responded to two questionnaires over a three-month period to determine the changes in their expectations over time. Additionally, we conducted qualitative interviews with 10 unemployed. We found that older people experienced longer periods of unemployment, and had a greater willingness to reduce salary expectations. The study establishes an innovative connection between older unemployed, reservation wages and the duration of unemployment, showing that higher reservation wages among older unemployed is the cause of prolonging their unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the last ten years the employment rate of older people has improved considerably. It can be assumed that the development was furthered by the removal of legal incentives for early retirement. This study analyses whether the probability of transiting from unemployment into employment has also changed for the elderly in Germany between 2000 and 2009. To assess this question we estimate a hazard rate model, using administrative records of individuals born between 1935 and 1974. Our results show that the employment probabilities of elderly people in particular increased between 2006 and 2009 relative to earlier years. However, we also find persistent differences in the employment probabilities across different age groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing the employment of older working-age adults can entail numerous benefits, including higher individual incomes, higher future pension entitlements, stimulation and retention of cognitive skills, and better mental health. Policy makers must implement interventions designed to encourage the re-employment of older unemployed people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age becomes one of the variables that modulate the effects of unemployment. The studies that analyze the effects of unemployed over 45 years show that the consequences made are more noticeable in this age group. The attitudes toward work were explored using a sample consisted on 262 unemployed people who lives in the south of Spain. The work concludes with proposals for intervention and future research in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In several European countries, older unemployed people, after reaching a certain age, are entitled to unemployment benefit payments without having to seek new employment. The coexistence of this exemption clause and of reforms aimed at containing early retirement in the respective countries reflects a conflict of political aims – on the one hand, between an efficient labour-market policy at a time of high unemployment, and on the other hand, the goal of the comprehensive activation and labour-market integration of older workers as a response to demographic change. This paper deals with the reasons for the transfer of older long-term unemployed people on to ‘facilitated benefits’ for labour-market withdrawal in Germany. The empirical analysis shows that low or no propensity to work was rarely the motive for leaving the labour market; in particular, those anticipating a low retirement income actually wanted to be re-employed. The vast majority gave three reasons for the decision to retire: an inability to cope with requirements of available jobs; a lack of job opportunities; and an absence of proper support from the public employment agency. Thus the withdrawal of older long-term unemployed people into pre-retirement cannot be attributed to a utility-maximising decision in favour of leisure and against gainful employment, but is the primary result of the scarce re-employment prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – The educational methodology of lifelong learning and adult education ensures human employment, the progress of society and peaceful social coexistence. Programs of vocational training for unemployed people or for groups with special needs are the common ways to ensure that employment inequalities are diminished and job opportunities for a better life are provided to the members of the community. Obviously, the standards of such education are of a great importance. If high standards are ensured, better results are achieved. The purpose of this paper is to document the development of a prototype system that will ensure high quality standards in the operation of a vocational training centre (VTC).Design/methodology/approach – Research was carried out among students, teachers and staff of a specific VTC in Xanthi, aiming at specifying the key factors that influence the quality of the training provided.Findings – The results of the research are presented and in relation to the answers given to special questionnaires there are suggestions regarding the issues of decision making, dealing with complaints, monitoring the quality of the training procedure and evaluating the vocational program in coordination with all members of the VTC (students, trainers and staff) and the companies where the trainees had practical training.Practical implications – Some of these suggestions have already been implemented, with promising results.Originality/value – The paper draws conclusions and makes recommendations for further research on specific topics that may improve the operational quality of the vocational training centres under discussion. Initiatives that will be taken by the state authorities are also described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of mature job seekers actively pursuing employment is increasing, and it is critical to recognize the variety of needs and desires they want from employment. We hypothesized that mature job seekers would be grouped into meaningful clusters based on their desires for work and that these groups would differ regarding the work features they were looking for in a new job. Using survey data from a sample of 173 mature job seekers over age forty, we identified three clusters: Those who work primarily for monetary and family reasons (which we labeled satisficers), those who seek personal satisfaction and learning opportunities from employment ( free agents), and those who seek employment for a broad variety of reasons ( maximizers). These three groups differed in their preferences for work schedule, availability of benefits, and developmental opportunities. We conclude by discussing potential individual-level interventions and organizational recruitment and staffing strategies for different groups of mature job seekers. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article demonstrates how public policies established in Belgium during the 1980s allowed the unemployed over the age of 50 to avoid the negative aspects of their situation, including lack of self-esteem and loss of identity. It shows how the creation of the status chômeur âgé, or older unemployed, in 1986 positively impacted the sociability and well-being of its beneficiaries. Topics of discussion include the European Union's insistence in raising the employment rate as a way to fight against an aging population and reforms enacted by Belgium since 1999 which make conditions to gain access to vacant jobs more difficult.

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay describes the personal journey of a " long-term unemployed" older (50+) professional, who struggled with the reality of his growing irrelevance in a rapidly changing world until he thought "outside the box" and secured a job for which, prior to the recent economic recession, he would have considered himself grossly overqualified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Einleitung: Das hier beschriebene Projekt richtete sich speziell an ältere Langzeitarbeitslose (50 - 65 Jahren) als besonders benachteiligte und in ihrer Gesundheit gefährdete Gruppe. Ziel war es, verhaltens- und verhältnisorientierte Ansätze zur Gesundheitsförderung älterer Erwerbsloser zu evaluieren. Dabei standen die Stabilisierung und Stärkung psychosozialer Ressourcen, wie Selbstwirksamkeitserwartung () und wahrgenommene körperliche, psychische und soziale Gesundheit () im Vordergrund. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Einleitung: Die negativen Folgen von Erwerbslosigkeit auf die physische und psychische Gesundheit sind seit langem belegt. Neben finanziellen Einschränkungen sind der Verlust sozialer Kontakte, persönlicher Anerkennung und der Wegfall der Lebensperspektive gravierende Faktoren, die sowohl das subjektive Gesundheitserleben als auch das Gesundheitsverhalten und die objektive Gesundheit beeinflussen. Gezielte Gesundheitsförderung ist notwendig und sinnvoll, um Reintegrationsprozesse zu unterstützen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]