Abstract
This chapter demonstrates in the European context how an economic, cost of illness, approach affects the policy conclusions in extending work careers, compared to traditional approaches and that it is important to look at different age groups when planning actions in this respect. In addition, a calculation of the costs of early retirement in Finland is conducted and its implications are discussed. We start by estimating the economic value the loss of production caused by early retirement. We then use retirement and disability pension statistics to find out how different approaches change policy conclusions. The value of the annual loss of production caused by early retirement equals 10 % of the annual total production value (GDP) in Finland. For the moment in Finland economic analysis seems to lead to much greater emphasis on mental disorders of young people than traditional analysis, which emphasizes of musculoskeletal disorders of elderly workers. Looking at aggregate, absolute figures may give misleading advice on how to direct the efforts to extend work careers. If we only look at the number of cases within different age groups, we come to one set of conclusions about relevant action. If we, on the other hand, also take into account the loss of work years as a result of early retirement we come to quite a different set of policy conclusions. The cost of early retirement compared to annual investments in work-wellbeing indicates that activities in this field are still smaller than optimal.
An erratum to this chapter is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9798-6_17
An erratum to this chapter can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9798-6_17
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Ahonen, G. (2015). The Economy of Sustainable Careers During the Work Life Course: A Case from Finland. In: Vuori, J., Blonk, R., Price, R. (eds) Sustainable Working Lives. Aligning Perspectives on Health, Safety and Well-Being. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9798-6_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9798-6_3
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