Promoting active ageing – capitalising on older people’s working potential
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly debate
on 28 January 2011 (9th Sitting) (see Doc. 12431, report of the Social,
Health and Family Affairs Committee, rapporteur: Mr Jacquat). Text
adopted by the Assembly on 28 January 2011 (9th Sitting).
- Thesaurus
1. Age discrimination is often unconscious,
but it undermines older people’s dignity, their human rights and self-esteem
and is a huge waste of talent. The Parliamentary Assembly considers
that, although ageism is less acknowledged than racism or sexism,
it is a harmful prejudice that results in widespread lack of respect
for older people, whether through the media, which promote stereotypical
and degrading images of older people, within society, where they
are the victims of physical and financial abuse, in the workplace,
where they are subject to unequal treatment, or in the health sector
where they do not always receive appropriate medical care and services.
2. The Assembly has recalled on several occasions that there
is a pressing need to change the approach to population ageing and
to adjust policies accordingly. Therefore, it welcomes the stance
taken by the Committee of Ministers, in particular in its reply
to
Recommendation 1796
(2007) on the situation of elderly persons in Europe.
3. The Assembly notes that many working-age individuals, who
could work and actively contribute to society, are either unemployed
or “inactive”, in particular in the 50 plus age group. Globalisation
and increased competition are having an impact on the work environment
and on the quality of work available to older workers, who also
face a number of obstacles to remaining in or re-entering the employment
market, including pressures to balance their working lives with
family and care responsibilities, a problem in particular for older
women.
4. The Assembly believes that, by increasing the number of healthy
and active older persons, governments can provide more generous
assistance to those in need of health care and long-term care and
make public funding available for education, training and welfare
services. However, it stresses that encouraging people to be more
active and lead healthier lifestyles is not a substitute for social
security systems based on solidarity, with an adequate safety net
for those for whom employment is an unrealistic option.
5. The Assembly also acknowledges that, after retirement age,
older people continue to contribute to society in a voluntary capacity,
as citizens, carers and consumers. The lack of accurate information
on their economic contribution to society reinforces the stereotypical
ideas of older people being unproductive and dependent.
6. The Assembly considers that policies which are designed to
promote active ageing require action in a variety of policy areas,
in addition to labour market policies. To this end, the Assembly
encourages the member states of the Council of Europe to give consideration,
as appropriate, to the following policy guidelines:
6.1 regarding age discrimination:
6.1.1 adopting legislation to prohibit age discrimination and
removing labour market barriers, and empowering older persons to
enter, remain in or return to the labour market, in accordance with
their capabilities and willingness to work;
6.1.2 implementing programmes that redirect both employees’
and employers’ attitudes towards a more positive assessment of active
ageing and facilitating an efficient information and co-ordination
process among employer organisations and trade unions, with regard
to employment initiatives for an ageing workforce;
6.2 regarding social protection measures:
6.2.1 analysing
the impact of globalisation and economic downturns, and proposing
ad hoc measures to prevent older workers who lose their jobs from
falling into long-term unemployment;
6.2.2 supporting the provision of a social safety net for older
people who have no pensions or meagre retirement incomes because
they have worked all or most of their lives in the home or in an
unpaid capacity;
6.3 regarding flexible work arrangements:
6.3.1 promoting
policies that aim at improving the quality of flexible work arrangements
for older workers, enabling them to move to less demanding jobs
and opting for part-time work, teamwork, job-sharing, task rotation
and redefinition of tasks between team members;
6.3.2 facilitating phased retirement and encouraging initiatives
such as voluntary or community work to ease such transition;
6.3.3 developing new approaches to care of the elderly and supporting
informal carers, such as extending parental leave provisions to
enable all unpaid carers responsible for dependent relatives to
enjoy an adequate protection of their social rights, including pension
rights;
6.4 regarding training, reskilling and lifelong learning:
6.4.1 adopting a life-course approach and taking preventive
measures aimed at enhancing the employability of the workforce as
it ages, such as occupational health-care measures, reskilling programmes
at mid-career and initiatives to minimise the risk of persons resorting
to invalidity schemes;
6.4.2 raising awareness among the younger generation of the
importance of lifelong learning and encouraging young adults to
prepare for old age in their health, training, and social and financial
practices;
6.4.3 tapping into the potential of information and communication
technologies to open up employment and training possibilities for
older people, including those with disabilities;
6.5 regarding health promotion:
6.5.1 developing
proactive health-care policies by focusing on health promotion,
disease prevention and the treatment of chronic diseases, and promoting
health literacy programmes in the workplace aimed at older workers;
6.5.2 carrying out research on the changes needed to encourage
older workers to remain active, shedding light on the best ways
to foster lifelong learning for older workers and on the work arrangements
and financial incentives that are best suited to them;
6.6 regarding volunteering: encouraging the development of
voluntary activities for all age groups by reinforcing intergenerational
solidarity and removing legal and administrative obstacles which
prevent older people from active participation and engagement;
6.7 regarding institutional commitments:
6.7.1 encouraging ratification and full implementation of the
European Social Charter (ETS No. 35) and the revised European Social
Charter (ETS No. 163), whose provisions would improve the protection
of older people and older workers;
6.7.2 encouraging ratification of the European Code of Social
Security and its Protocol (ETS Nos. 48 and 48A), as well as the
revised European Code of Social Security (ETS No. 139), which set
standards in the social security field on the basis of minimum harmonisation
of the level of social security.
