Rethinking the role of older workers: promoting older worker employment in Europe and Japan.

Concern about the sustainability of public pension and health care systems in the face of aging populations has policymakers in developed countries looking to the contributions that older workers might make to economic growth and the alleviation of rising support burdens. Governments in countries throughout Western Europe, where employment rates often fall sharply after age 55, have recently introduced a number of measures designed to increase employment rates and prolong working life. For many countries, an acknowledgment of older workers as a resource represents an effort to reverse well-entrenched policies promoting early retirement with generous pension benefits.