The implications of Australian women’s precarious employment for the later pension age

What is it about?

Governments around the world are increasing eligibility ages for public pensions in response to ageing populations. But the article shows that people in low paid precarious jobs will find it hard to keep working until these later ages. Precarious jobs are not the type of sustainable employment you need to keep working well into your 60s or even 70 as proposed recently by the Australian government. If you are in a precarious job by midlife in fact you are likely to be stuck in it permanently or find that it is the doorway to long term unemployment or premature workforce exit. Women who have higher rates of participation in precarious jobs are very exposed to the risks of the later pension age. They will need to be reliant on lower and highly conditional income support payments like unemployment benefits. The experience in these payment types was well documented recently in the Ken Loach film, I, Daniel Blake. The article also shows that many precarious jobs carry significant mental and physical health risks due to the high levels of surveillance and monitoring for demanding outputs. These are not the conditions which enable people to keep working until advanced ages.

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Why is it important?

Increased pension eligibility ages are based on hopelessly dated ideas about the workforce. As a policy response to ageing populations it does not take account of the changes in the labour market with its increased levels of precarious employment and growing polarisation between 'good' jobs and 'bad' jobs. The irony is that people in the 'good' jobs are likely to be able to retire when they want to but those in the 'bad' jobs are going to have to keep working longer even if this is hard for them. Additionally, if they are in a 'bad' job they are more likely to lose it anyway and if they are older won't be able to get another one, and certainly not a 'good' sustainable one.

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