The Impact of National Context on Managing Age Diversity: The Cases of the UK and Germany

Abstract

This chapter discusses the impact of global and European Union (EU) wide pressures on age management in the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany. Following Walker (1999), ‘age management’ refers to the overall management of an ageing workforce. Although employers have been advised to take younger workers into consideration when framing age-management policies (Employers Forum on Age 2006; Low Pay Commission 2004; Snape and Redman 2003), EU policies have been focused primarily on raising older people’s economic activity (European Commission 2004). Accordingly, this research mainly concerns organisational initiatives to encourage older workers to remain in or re-enter work. Our focus on older workers is not meant to deny any discrimination experienced by younger workers, but focuses on how employers are reacting to government initiatives emanating from EU initiatives to bring older people into work.