THE THIRD AGE -- THE AGE OF REASON: A GIFT AND NOT A BURDEN.

• Author: Patterson, John

INTRODUCTION

The Third Age has been defined as the period of life when people emerge from the imperatives of earning a living and/or bringing up children and may be able to look forward to twenty or more years of healthy life (Stowe 1993). I argue that a welfare system, such as we have now in New Zealand, that accepts implicit retirement from the age of 55 years, represents a significant loss of human capital that the economy can ill afford.

In this paper, I draw on my observations as someone who has been involved in working with older job-seekers for 15 years, in centres from Invercargill to Whangarei. Through my work, I have listened to people talk about their fears, joys, concerns, and successes from one end of the country to the other. From 1992 until August 1999, I was National Coordinator of the Mature Employment Support Association (MESA).

I come from Tyneside, where the world's largest coal field is found. Thousands of men were employed in the pits. During the 1960s, the pits were closed, one by one, putting all the men out of work. The Tyne was the largest shipbuilding area in the world, but the same thing happened with the shipyards. This was repeated in the steelworks and all the heavy engineering factories. Many thousands lost their jobs. I worked in the construction industry where jobs were always uncertain. It was necessary to go wherever the jobs were in order to survive.

I came to New Zealand to find a workforce that had never felt the threat of unemployment. This changed very, very rapidly. The people had no idea this was about to happen. The historical environment of full employment that existed prior to the mid 1970s did not encourage skill acquisition, continuing education and positive attitudes towards lifelong learning in much of the New Zealand work force. Changes to the labour market dynamic left many workers exposed as the structural changes in the economy demanded different skills and attributes. This is why I started the Mature Employment Service.

My aim in writing this paper is to bridge the distance between general labour profiles provided by Statistics New Zealand and the descriptive studies of personal experiences of older job seekers and those in, or approaching, the "third age". The paper is organised into four sections. First, the recent history of mature employment(1) in New Zealand is discussed with particular attention to the public sector restructuring of the 1980s and 1990s. This is contextualised with census and research information and legislation. The second section provides a brief overview of my experiences within the mature employment field, focusing on the psychological impact of change in the labour market. The third section is a discussion of the "third age" and related programmes. Finally, I make suggestions for the improvement of policies relating to mature employment.

NEW ZEALAND CONTEXT

In discussing the recent history of mature employment, I focus on public sector restructuring because that is the area with which I am most familiar, and because it provides a clear context for discussing the key issues affecting older workers. I do not discuss the causes of the restructuring (which, of course, affected the whole labour market, not the public sector alone) or the way in which New Zealand was affected by events in the wider world, e.g. oil shocks, more open trade, technology-driven changes, etc. These are beyond the scope of this paper.

There are two key issues that I wish to emerge from this discussion. The first is that older workers are falling, prematurely, out of the labour market at a time when they are likely to have longer potentially productive time following the traditional retirement age. The second point is that New Zealanders have tended to be under-prepared (both financially and mentally) for retirement.

Public Sector Restructuring

The restructuring of state services, the largest single employer within New Zealand, began in 1985. The Department of Lands and Survey, the Forest Service and the State Mines were the first services to be affected. In order to assist with the restructuring, in September 1986 the State Services Commission (SSC) established the Social Impact Unit to identify and address local problems arising from the restructuring, and to work specifically in the areas hardest hit. However, the Ministerial Co-ordinating Committee on State Owned Enterprises decided to reduce Unit staffing on 6 May 1987, and the Unit was disbanded on 31 March 1989.

The need for such a Unit was demonstrated in Southland and Otago, where entire communities, which had been dependent on state-run mining or forestry as sole employers, became centres of high unemployment with no identifiable alternative sources of employment. The impact of this was most severe for workers in the 45+ age group who had largely gone into work straight from school and who had no experience of unemployment. While younger people were able to relocate to find work, workers in the mature age group seemed to have no way to deal with either the practical or psychological impact of job loss. Thus, while redundancy payments may have been liberal and provided opportunities for some to establish new careers, many older people were severely affected by the restructuring.

Some measures brought in to alleviate the situation also created problems. For example, the Social Impact Unit negotiated a deal with the Housing Corporation whereby they would purchase a redundant person's house if that person lived in an area of high unemployment caused by the public sector restructuring, in order to allow the person to relocate to a more job-friendly area. This was good for the redundant worker, but it had a very bad effect on the property values of those who stayed in the area.

The Mature Employment Service

I was the SSC Social Impact Unit co-ordinator for Southland and, when the Unit was disbanded, I continued this work by setting up the Southland Employment Resource Centre (SERC). Under the umbrella of SERC, a self-help group of older job seekers was set up. This group was called Grey Panthers and changed its name to the Mature Employment Service (MES) in 1989. MES now operates throughout the country.

The MES philosophy suggests that forced retirement is a form of discrimination. People should be able to choose at what age they want to retire. Most people have an official retirement age fixed in their minds. This affects the job aspirations of many people over 45. Retirement is a vulnerable time of life and can be very stressful, especially if it is not planned. The stress of unplanned retirement can lead to both physical and mental ill health.

Over the last ten years, MES Centres, Age Concern and other similar organisations have been working to find solutions to the problems identified by the older workers themselves. Each month these...