Today marks April 7, World Health Day. The celebration will launch a year-long campaign called ‘Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures’. Next to its focus on preventing maternal and new-born deaths, it also highlights women’s long-term health and well-being which in turn serves as a foundation for healthy families and communities.
In light of World Health Day 2025, we would like to offer insight on the intersection of health, gender, and labour market outcomes of older workers. This topic is thoroughly studied in our recently published working paper titled “Explaining cross-country variation in timing and work exit routes among older workers”. The study uses data from European countries included in the Study of Ageing, Retirement and Health in Europe (SHARE) to understand the role of individual factors like gender, health limitations, and care responsibilities, in the timing of exit from the labour market.
The paper first highlights that the reforms implemented in different European countries, aimed at extending working lives, led to prolonging the labour market participation of older workers, as evidenced by the employment rate of people aged 55-64 years old in European Union countries increasing from 38.1% in 2004 to 63.9% in 2024. However, significant challenges and inequalities persist in the timing of exit and exit routes of older workers.
Our findings show that for older workers, health limitations constitute a key driver of early labour market exit, with poor health significantly increasing the likelihood of retirement. Older workers reporting poor health, particularly chronic conditions, are more likely to retire early or enter disability pensions. Additionally, our findings indicate a concerning association between health issues and economic vulnerability: workers who face significant health challenges, report the highest levels of mental and physical exhaustion after work, express more frequent worries about their future economic situation and report more difficulties in making ends meet. This suggests that poor health is associated with unfavourable working conditions and greater financial insecurity among older workers. To address these issues, policies should focus on creating health-promoting workplaces that can be beneficial for enabling older workers to remain in employment longer and reduce their economic vulnerability.
When considering the aspect of gender, the results show that men and women display similar intentions to retire early. However, when other individual risk factors like health limitations and care responsibilities are taken into consideration, women tend to express higher early retirement intentions than men. Thus, decisions of early retirement vary by gender only when individual risk factors overlap. For example, older women’s intention to retire early is more often influenced by caregiving responsibilities than that of men. This often comes along with lower retirement savings due to fragmented employment trajectories and lower earnings, which could lead to financial gender gaps and financial insecurity in older age. Consequently, women can end up more economically vulnerable than men in retirement. Implementing paid leave for taking care of older relatives can provide caregivers the opportunity to take time off work without losing income, thereby reducing financial stress and allowing for a better balance between caregiving duties and employment.
The working paper also discusses the specific case of Norway, using data from the Quality-of-life Survey carried out by Statistics Norway. The data show a clear correlation between poor health and disability, which is more prevalent among women. Moreover, women with health limitations are more likely to receive disability pensions than remain employed. Disability benefits are associated with financial insecurity, thereby creating a gender disparity that disadvantages women. Thus, socio-economic dimensions will create greater disparities between elderly based on health, educational attainment, and type of job, potentially affecting women more than men.
In conclusion,
- The intersection of health, gender, and labour market outcomes of older workers highlights significant challenges, particularly for women.
- Health limitations play a critical role in early retirement decisions, with women more likely to retire early due to caregiving responsibilities.
- To reduce economic vulnerability, policies should focus on improving working conditions for older workers, especially those facing health challenges, and promoting initiatives such as paid leave for caregiving.
Addressing these issues will be key in ensuring a more secure and equitable future for older workers, particularly women.
Read more about the role of health, but also other individual characteristics, on exits from the labour market in Europe in our latest research.