manding or hazardous jobs to those in which skills or knowledge are the important requirements may increase the potential for older workers to remain in the labor force longer. TABLE 3-3.-NONAGRICULTURAL EMPLOYMENT BY INDUSTRY BY AGE, THIRD QUARTER 1986 [Not seasonally adjusted] Distribution (in percent):1 Mining... Construction Manufacturing-durables. Manufacturing nondurables. Public administration.. May not add to 100 due to rounding. 2 Excludes private household workers. Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, unpublished. TABLE 3-4.-EMPLOYMENT BY OCCUPATION BY AGE, THIRD QUARTER 1986 Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, unpublished. NOTE: White Collar occupations include Managerial/Professional and Technical/Sales/Administrative Operators/Fabricators/Laborers. SOURCE: U.S. Bureau for Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, unpublished. 3 According to labor projections developed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the majority of working older persons are currently employed in those industries that are expected to have the largest gains in employment. BLS also predicts that over 80 percent of the overall increase in employment will occur in the three occupational groups that are the biggest employers of older persons-service, professional/managerial, and technical/sales/administrative support. D. PART-TIME WORK PART-TIME WORK IS AN INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT FORM OF EMPLOYMENT FOR THE ELDERLY Part-time work is viewed by the working public of all ages as desirable during retirement. According to results of a nationwide poll taken by Lou Harris in 1981, about three-quarters of the labor force prefer to continue some kind of paid part-time work after retirement. The majority of the labor force respondents to this survey felt that a flexible work schedule would be beneficial for retirees. Seventy-four percent of workers age 55 and over interviewed in the Harris survey, for instance, felt that a job that allows a day or two a week at home would be beneficial, 71 percent felt that a job Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment Projections for 1995: Data and Methods. Bulletin 2253. April 1986. Harris, Louis and Associates. Aging in the Eighties: America in Transition. A Survey Conducted for the National Council on Aging, 1981. 56% shared with someone else would be beneficial and 57 percent felt that a flexible work schedule covering 70 hours every 2 weeks would be helpful. In contrast, far fewer individuals 55 and over (44 percent) felt that regular full-time jobs would be a help to them personally if they wanted to work after retirement. TABLE 3-5.-EMPLOYED PERSONS 45 YEARS AND OVER ON PART-TIME AND FULL-TIME WORK Source: U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, unpublished. Although the actual number of older persons working part time does not begin to equal the number who report that this would be desirable, for both men and women, the proportion of workers on part-time schedules increases with age. This trend has become more dramatic in the last two decades (table 3-5). For instance, from 1960 to 1986, the proportion of male workers age 45 to 64 on part-time schedules did not increase, but the proportion of 65-plus male part-time workers increased by more than 50 percent. E. UNEMPLOYMENT FOR THE ELDERLY, UNEMPLOYMENT RESULTS IN LONG-TERM PROBLEMS The unemployment rate for the elderly is about half that of younger workers, but once older workers lose their jobs, they stay unemployed longer than younger workers, suffer a greater earnings loss in a subsequent job than younger workers, and are more likely to give up looking for another job following a layoff.5 The majority of older persons do not want to work full time after retirement because they see retirement as a reward for years in the labor force or because they have disabling health problems. Almost two-thirds of retirees age 65 and over report that they left the work force by choice. Of the remaining one-third who report that they were forced to retire, close to two-thirds claim to have retired because of disability or poor health and 20 percent because their employers had a mandatory retirement age. 6 Unemployment is a serious problem for those elderly persons who have to work for economic reasons or because they want to 5 Rones, Phil. Labor Market Problems of Older Workers. Monthly Labor Review, May 7, 1983. Parnes, Herbert S., Mary G. Gagen, and Randall H. King. Job Loss Among Long Service Workers (Herbert Parnes, editor). Work and Retirement: A Longitudinal Survey of Men. MIT Press, 1981. 6 Harris, Louis, 1981. stay active. Based on third quarter figures for 1986, the unemployment rate for the elderly was 2.8 percent (table 3-6). Of Americans age 60 and over, 262,000 were out of work in the third quarters of 1986; 86,000 of these were age 65 or over. These numbers are not large compared to younger age groups, but because duration of unemployment is longer among older workers and there are relatively many more discouraged older workers than younger workers, the official unemployment rate is a poor indicator of the seriousness of the problem. TABLE 3-6.-UNEMPLOYMENT BY AGE AND SEX, THIRD QUARTER 1986 Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, unpublished. Older persons who are unemployed stay out of work longer than younger persons. In fact, persons age 55 to 64 have the longest spells of unemployment of any group in the country. For inprogress spells of unemployment, in which the job seeker has not yet found a job or given up the search for one, workers aged 55 to 64 in the third quarter of 1986 had an average of 25 weeks of unemployment as compared to 12.1 weeks for workers age 20 to 24. Discouraged workers are those who have given up looking for jobs and no longer appear in either unemployment or employment statistics. For persons age 65 and over, the number of discouraged workers was 42 percent greater than the number unemployed in the third quarter of 1986. If added together, discouraged workers would add 3.8 percentage points to unemployment rates for persons 65-plus. This would, in effect, more than double current unemployment rates for older workers. Older job seekers are far less likely to find a job than younger persons. If they do find a job, they are likely to suffer an earnings loss. Longitudinal data and surveys have demonstrated that the wages of rehired older workers are often so low that it discourages many from seeking work after losing a job. Fringe benefits for older workers are also less common, largely because most older workers are employed by small employers who have only limited, if any, benefits for their workers. Chapter 4 HEALTH STATUS AND HEALTH SERVICES UTILIZATION The majority of elderly persons in their younger retirement years are relatively healthy and are not as limited in activity as frequently assumed-even if they have a chronic illness. However, health and mobility does decline with advancing age. By the eighth and ninth decade of life, the chance of being limited in activity and in need of health and social services increases significantly. This section describes the health status, health utilization patterns, and health expenses of the older population. A. SELF-ASSESSMENT OLDER PERSONS HAVE A POSITIVE VIEW OF THEIR PERSONAL HEALTH Contrary to popular opinion, older people, on the average, view their health positively. According to results of the 1984 Health Interview Survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, 67 percent of the elderly persons living in the community describe their own health as excellent, very good, or good compared with others of their own age; only 33 percent report that their health is fair or poor.1 Although this survey excludes the institutionalized 65-plus population and, therefore, oversamples the healthy elderly, the results are a good indicator of overall health status of the elderly in the community. Income is directly related to one's perception of his or her health (chart 4-1). About 20 to 25 percent of those with incomes over $20,000 described their health as excellent compared with others of their own age, while only 12 percent of those with low incomes (less than $10,000) reported excellent health.2 National Health Interview Survey, Supplement on Aging, 1984, National Center for Health Statistics. 2 Ibid. |