Ageing workforce
Europe's ageing population raises many challenges for policymakers in relation to employment, working conditions, living standards and welfare. It has led to concerns over the sustainability of pension systems and the supply of labour. Promoting employment opportunities for an ageing workforce requires new thinking at company, national and EU level.
Find the latest content on this topic below.
Europe must adapt to its ageing workforce
As the continent's birth rates decline and its population ages, policymakers face the urgent task of retaining experienced workers and adapting workplaces to meet the needs of an older demographic.How can Europe adapt to an ageing workforce?
How can Europe adapt to an ageing workforce? What impediments do older workers face at the workplace? How are changing technologies and job quality influencing the retention of older workers on the labour market?This episode sets out to answer these questions in the context of changing demographics in Europe and the need to make work more sustainable.Keeping older workers in the labour force
Europe’s population is ageing and has experienced natural decline since 2014, cushioned only by net migration. The working-age population is shrinking as the number of older individuals grows, a trend expected to continue with the retirement of the baby boom generation. This shift presents challenges for policymakers in relation to employment, living standards and welfare sustainability across EU Member States.
This report aims to answer the question of how to keep older workers in employment as long as possible. It provides a comprehensive analysis of employment developments. It examines job quality differences across various age groups and analyses differences in job quality within the group of older workers. The report also explores the push and pull factors influencing employment trends across Europe and delves into the policies and practices implemented by Member States to keep older workers in the workforce. It highlights the critical role of social partners in shaping these outcomes and, finally, provides general pointers for policymakers to consider.
Eurofound has a long history of expertise in issues facing the ageing workforce. Research since the 1990s has focused on labour market participation, job performance, working conditions and work preferences of older workers in the policy context of Europe's changing demographic profile. Work has also centred on public support and company-level initiatives fostering older workers’ employment. It has looked at older women workers, highlighting the increasing employment rates for this group and their increasing proportion of the workforce, especially in the 55–64 age group.
Despite substantial growth in the employment rates of older workers over the past decade in many EU countries, the European Commission’s Joint Employment Report 2017 highlights the potential to increase these rates further. In 2016, the employment rate for older workers aged 55–64 in the EU stood at 55.3%, compared with 66.6% for those aged 15–64 as a whole. The increase has been largest among older women.
The European Pillar of Social Rights provides a framework for helping labour markets adapt to new challenges while promoting fairness and solidarity between the generations. It emphasises the right to a working environment adapted to a worker’s professional needs to enable them to prolong their participation in the labour market. Moreover, the recent European social partners’ autonomous agreement on active ageing and inter-generational approach commits to making it easier for older workers to actively participate and stay longer in the labour market.
European Commission: Joint Employment Report 2025opens in new tab
European Commission: European Pillar of Social Rightsopens in new tab
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work: Autonomous framework agreement on active ageing and an inter-generational approachopens in new tab
This is a selection of the most important outputs for this topic.
31 March 2025
Keeping older workers in the labour force
Europe’s population is ageing and has experienced natural decline since 2014, cushioned only by net migration. The working-age population is shrinking as the number of older individuals grows, a trend expected to continue with the retirement of the baby boom generation. This shift presents challenges for policymakers in relation to employment, living standards and welfare sustainability across EU Member States.
This report aims to answer the question of how to keep older workers in employment as long as possible. It provides a comprehensive analysis of employment developments. It examines job quality differences across various age groups and analyses differences in job quality within the group of older workers. The report also explores the push and pull factors influencing employment trends across Europe and delves into the policies and practices implemented by Member States to keep older workers in the workforce. It highlights the critical role of social partners in shaping these outcomes and, finally, provides general pointers for policymakers to consider.
19 December 2023
Intergenerational inequalities: How to close the gaps?
The various economic and social shocks of the past decade and a half – most recently the COVID-19 pandemic – have ongoing consequences for the living standards and prospects of Europeans, and sometimes these outcomes have been uneven across age groups. Social policies – such as those in the areas of social protection and housing – in some cases have benefited certain age groups over others. The upshot both of crises and of policies is that inequalities between the generations have widened in important areas.
This policy brief examines some of the intergenerational social trends that either were persistent or changed considerably over the last decade and a half, sometimes contrary to expectations. It focuses on significant developments that have received somewhat less attention in policy planning in the areas of income, housing, work and employment, and health. The intention is to develop a clearer sense of the direction of social change and bring medium- and long-term perspectives into policy thinking.
28 January 2022
COVID-19 and older people: Impact on their lives, support and care
This report captures the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the quality of life of older citizens, including the impact on their well-being, finances, employment and social inclusion. It explores the effects on the use of care services and older people’s reliance on other support. The report presents policy measures that have been implemented in EU Member States to support older people along all of the above-mentioned dimensions. These include measures to support independent living and schemes to support the labour market integration of older people or to prevent unemployment, all of which play a role in the quality of life of older citizens.
26 February 2021
Working conditions and sustainable work: An analysis using the job quality framework
This flagship report summarises the key findings of Eurofound’s research on working conditions conducted over the programming period 2017–2020. It maps the progress achieved since 2000 in improving working conditions and examines whether all workers have benefited equally from positive change. It highlights which groups are the most at risk of experiencing poor working conditions and being left behind. Given the changes in the world of work, emerging challenges for good job quality are identified. The report also provides evidence for measures that could lead to the further improvement of work and the achievement of fair working conditions for all in the EU. The analysis shows that, overall, job quality in the EU is improving, if slowly. Not all workers are benefiting to the same extent, however. Furthermore, gender, age and contractual status have a significant bearing on a person’s working conditions. And while digitalisation helps to address some job quality issues, it also creates new challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated trends, reinforcing concerns and highlighting the importance of achieving job quality for all.
13 May 2019
Working conditions and workers' health
This report uses European Working Conditions Survey data to examine working conditions and their implications for worker’s health. Ensuring the sustainability of work in the context of ageing populations implies a greater number of people in employment who can remain in the workforce for longer. The report examines the interplay between work demands – which carry an increased risk of exhaustion – and work resources – which support workers in greater engagement and well-being. The findings indicate that physical risks have not increased but remain important, while emotional demands have increased, underlining the growing importance of psychosocial risks at work. Changes over time suggest that although the risk of poor health is concentrated in certain occupations, those occupations traditionally considered to be protected are increasingly exposed to risks that are likely to affect workers’ health and well-being.
15 November 2018
Not finished at 50: Keeping older workers in work
23 January 2018
European Quality of Life Survey 2016
Nearly 37,000 people in 33 European countries (28 EU Member States and 5 candidate countries) were interviewed in the last quarter of 2016 for the fourth wave of the European Quality of Life Survey. This overview report presents the findings for the EU Member States. It uses information from previous survey rounds, as well as other research, to look at trends in quality of life against a background of the changing social and economic profile of European societies. Ten years after the global economic crisis, it examines well-being and quality of life broadly, to include quality of society and public services. The findings indicate that differences between countries on many aspects are still prevalent – but with more nuanced narratives. Each Member State exhibits certain strengths in particular aspects of well-being, but multiple disadvantages are still more pronounced in some societies than in others; and in all countries significant social inequalities persist.
21 December 2017
Working conditions of workers of different ages
Demographic change is changing the face of working life across the EU. The increased demand on a shrinking pool of workers to provide for the social needs of an ageing population is leading to increases in the employment rate of older workers and a lengthening of working life. Policy reforms have – on the whole – focused on raising the statutory retirement age and providing financial incentives for older workers to remain in work beyond retirement age. However, a range of other factors also influence workers’ decision to continue working into old age – including health and well-being, work–life balance, career prospects and job security, and working conditions such as autonomy, hours of work and psychosocial aspects of the workplace. This report analyses these factors in depth for the 28 EU Member States, using data from the latest European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS 2015) and in the context of Eurofound’s concept of ‘sustainable work over the life course’.
Researchers at Eurofound provide expert insights and can be contacted for questions or media requests.
Franz Ferdinand Eiffe
Research managerFranz Eiffe is a research manager in the Working Life unit at Eurofound. He is involved in projects on sustainable work, quantitative analyses and upward convergence in the EU, as well as in the preparation of the fourth European Company Survey. Before joining Eurofound in 2016, he was Head of Unit ‘Analysis’ at Statistics Austria in Vienna and project leader of ‘How is Austria? Measuring wealth and progress beyond GDP’. He holds a PhD in Economics from Vienna University of Economics (WU), where he also worked as research associate from 2005 to 2009 and lecturer until 2016.
Hans Dubois
Senior research managerHans Dubois is a senior research manager in the Social Policies unit at Eurofound. His research topics include housing, over-indebtedness, healthcare, long-term care, social benefits, retirement, and quality of life in the local area. Prior to joining Eurofound, he was Assistant Professor at Kozminski University (Warsaw). He completed a PhD in Business Administration and Management at Bocconi University (Milan), after working as a research officer at the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (Madrid).
Oscar Vargas Llave
Senior research managerOscar Vargas Llave is a senior research manager in the Working Life unit at Eurofound and manages projects on changes in the world of work and the impact on working conditions and related policies: organisation of working time, remote work, the right to disconnect, health and well-being and ageing. Before joining Eurofound in December 2009, he worked as project coordinator in the field of health and safety and was responsible for the Professional Card Scheme for the Construction Sector in Spain at the non-profit Fundación Laboral de la Construcción in Madrid. He has a background in industrial sociology (Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca), and also holds a Diploma in Social Science Research Methods from the University of Cardiff and a Master’s degree in Health and Safety from the Autonomous University of Madrid.
This section provides access to all content that has been published on the topic.
