Can the government support improved employment among older people in Poland?

The effective extension of working life in the age group 50+ in Poland will be assessed against high young unemployment and EU’s policy of support for all employees regardless of their age. The hypothesis to be verified is that the Polish government programme as revised at the end of 2013 improves employment in selected categories of people aged 50+. To increase employment in some groups of people in this age band, e.g. those living in rural areas, the structure of economic development in these areas must be changed.

Two sources of information will be used. One is the government policy of delayed retirement and its practical solutions aimed to change people’s attitudes towards employment beyond 50 years of age. A package of such solutions has been developed for the government programme Solidarity of generations updated at the end of 2013, which primarily sets out to attain a target rate of 50% for overall employment of workers aged 55-64 years by 2020. The other source of information is opinions given by respondents aged 50+ on the circumstances of completing professional careers in relation to retirement and on the possibility of continued economic activity (3200 CAPI interviews), as well as employers’ attitudes to extended employment of people eligible for pensions (1011 CATI interviews). The survey was conducted within the project “Equal opportunities on the labour market for people aged 50+ in 2012”.

The collected information will be utilised to assess the odds of the working life of people aged 50+ to be really extended in Poland. The analysis will also identify the weak points in the chain of changes proposed by the government.

Key words: aging workforce, extending working life, retirement age