Dear Colleagues,

The ageing of the global population has led to calls to prolong working lives in order reduce social welfare costs and to maintain an adequate supply of labour. Internationally, efforts are underway to push out the age of final labour market withdrawal. Thus, pathways to early retirement have been closed or access severely restricted and pension ages have increased in many countries. There is evidence that, as a consequence, patterns of retirement behavior are changing. Alongside economic arguments for the prolongation of working lives, advocates for older people have argued that working at older ages provides health benefits. However, this probably depends on the nature of the available jobs. Some older workers may not benefit from having access to ‘good’ work. Others, for a range of reasons, may not be able to access work at all and, thus, may experience a prolonged period of joblessness before they can claim a pension. Thus, access to an early pension may be better for some workers than ongoing labour market engagement in certain circumstances.

This Special Issue seeks empirical papers concerned with critically examining the health effects of continued labour market engagement at older ages. Who will benefit from longer working lives and how will these benefits manifest? And how is prolonged joblessness experienced by older workers? We also welcome high-quality systematic reviews related to these matters. I would be very happy if this Special Issue serves as a trigger for considering more effective ways of managing the transition from work to retirement.

Prof. Philip Taylor
Guest Editor

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• Older workers
• Healthy ageing
• Retirement transitions