Moritz Heß

• Professor at Hochschule Niederrhein

Demographic aging results in a growing number of older people in need of care in many regions all over the world. Germany has witnessed steady population aging for decades, prompting policymakers and other stakeholders to discuss how to fulfill the rapidly growing demand for care workers and finance the rising costs of long-term care. Informed deci...

Care work is mostly done by family members. While the (non-)reconciliation of care and work has already been researched in numerous studies, the state of research on studying and caring for (older) adults, such as one’s own parents or grandparents, has gaps. This paper, thus, asks: How many students engage in caregiving activities? How are caregivi...

Background: The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have posed major challenges to different groups. One of these are informal caregivers. This study investigates the changes the pandemic has caused for informal caregivers and the extent to which quality of life and burden of care have changed for specific subgroups. Methods: Data for this cro...

Objective: We explore gender differences in support of the norm that children must provide care for their parents. Background: Society's values and norms play a crucial role in deciding whether to provide family care. We investigate these values and norms on family care by analyzing which individual and country level factors affect them. Method: We...

Since university students increasingly face the need to reconcile studying and caring for an older person this study explores the lives, challenges and coping strategies of caregiving students in Germany as well as the ways institutions of higher education can (or already do) support them. The situation of such students was investigated with eight...

Digital literacy refers to a set of competencies related to the skilled use of computers and information technology. Low digital skills can be a barrier for older adults’ full participation in a digital society, and COVID-19 has increased this risk of social exclusion. Older adults’ digital inclusion is a complex process that consists of the interp...

The rapid development of digital technologies and their increasing application in many areas of everyday life challenge all citizens to continuously learn digital skills. This also applies to older adults, among whom digital literacy is on average less well-developed than among younger adults. This article investigates why retired older adults part...

Involuntary retirement transitions have a variety of negative consequences for individuals and society as they can lead to poorer health or lower wellbeing. Therefore, it is of high relevance to better understand the factors influencing the voluntariness of retirement transitions. A systematic literature review was conducted to identify the known d...

The municipality of The Hague has been a member of the WHO's Global Network for Age-Friendly Cities and Communities since 2015. The municipality commissioned a survey to investigate how older citizens view the age-friendliness of their city. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among a diverse sample of 393 community-dwelling older citizens. The...

Im Fokus des Beitrages steht der als paradigmatisch identifizierte normative wie auch strukturelle Wandel – von einer Politik der Frühverrentung hin zu einer des „Aktiven Alterns“. Eingeleitet wurden diese arbeitsmarkt- und sozialpolitischen Reformen, infolge derer sich ältere Arbeitnehmer*innen steigendem Druck zu längerer Erwerbstätigkeit ausgese...

Against the backdrop of demographic ageing, university students increasingly face the need to reconcile studying and caring for an older person. Surprisingly little is known about the lives of caregiving students or the ways institutions of higher education can (or do) support them, however. Knowing more about this group is of importance from an ac...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

One of the fastest growing labour market groups is working pensioners, meaning those who work past the statutory retirement age whilst receiving a pension. Previous research has investigated the motives of this group and found very heterogeneous reasons for employment in retirement. However, little is known about the expectations and preferred work...

As populations are ageing concerns regarding the sustainability of European welfare states have come to the forefront. In reaction, policy makers have implemented measurements aimed at the prolongation of working lives. This study investigates weather older workers have adapted their planned retirement age, as a result of this new policy credo. Bas...

This article examines country differences in the association between education and voluntary or involuntary labor market exit and whether these country differences map onto institutional characteristics of the countries. Work exit is defined as involuntary or voluntary based on the reasons of exit. Four different types of institutional factors, pus...

Policymakers in all European countries have implemented reforms aimed at delaying retirement and extending working lives mainly to mitigate financial pressure on public pay-as-you-go pension systems and to increase the supply of skilled labour. This could be a reason for an increase of older workers’ labour force participation. This increase was pa...

We investigate how labour market and pension measures associated with active ageing influence retirement behaviour in Austria and Germany. We focus on two conservative welfare states and evaluate how individuals respond to comparable pension scheme changes. Using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, findings point to increasing av...

This article examines country differences in the association between education and voluntary or involuntary labor market exit and whether these country differences map onto institutional characteristics of the countries. Work exit is defined as involuntary based on the reasons of exit. Four different types of institutional factors, push and pull, a...

Culture Matters - Norms, Employment and informal Care among Older European Women Against the background of an ageing society women aged between 50 and 65 are facing two challenges. On the one hand they are supposed to extend their working lives and on the other hand they are supposed to give informal care, conflicting the reconciliation of work and...

Die Einstellung der deutschen Tarifparteien, insbesondere aber der Gewerkschaften, zur Verlängerung der Lebensarbeitszeit war jahrzehntelang und ist bei vielen noch heute ambivalent. Vor allem in den Branchen, in denen die gesundheitsbedingten Frühverrentungen hoch sind und die Arbeitsbedingungen als überdurchschnittlich belastend gelten, war die P...

EXTEND ist ein Akronym und steht für das Projekt „Social inequalities in extending working lives of an ageing workforce“, das zwischen 2016 und 2018 unter der Federführung der beiden Herausgeber dieses Buches im Institut für Gerontologie an der TU Dortmund durchgeführt wurde. Es ist eines von insgesamt 5 Projekten, das im Rahmen des ersten Calls de...

In general, a conceptual framework “explains, either graphically or in narrative form, the main topics to be researched – the key factors, concepts, or variables – and the presumed relationship among them” (Maxwell 2005: 33). In a wider sense, it “includes the actual ideas and beliefs that you hold about the phenomena studied” (ibid.). Basically, a...

Zunahme/Vertiefung sozialer Ungleichheiten im Verrentungsgeschehen bestätigt EXTEND hat - empirisch breit abgesichert – belegen und damit bereits vorliegende Befunde bestätigen können, dass soziale Ungleichheiten im Verrentungsgeschehen weit verbreitet sind und sich im Zuge der verschiedenen renten-, arbeitsmarktpolitischen und betrieblichen Reakti...

Demographic ageing is one of the most persuasive phenomenon in our century, and has influence on several aspects of our public and private lives. People are expected to work longer to alleviate the financial burdens of the social security system. This elicits several questions faced by policy makers and workplace managers.

Im Allgemeinen versteht man unter „Good Practice“ eine Technik, ein Programm oder eine Maßnahme, die nachweislich und zuverlässig zu einem gewünschten Ergebnis (beispielsweise Reduktion von Fehlzeiten in einem Betrieb) geführt hat (Bretschneider, Frederick & Wu 2004). Diese “Good Practices“ können dann als Richtschnur oder Vorbild für andere Akteur...

The employment rate of Germany’s older workforce (55-65) has shown an impressive increase from the turn of the millennium on (see Figure 1). In the 15 years from 2000 to 2015, it rose from just under 40 per cent to over 60. How can this development be explained and what does it mean for Germany, its economy and welfare state, as well as for German...

Unbestritten hat digitale Technik positive Effekte für ältere Menschen, die damit verstehen umzugehen und dies auch tun. Allerdings können nicht alle Älteren selbstverständlich digital teilhaben. Für sie besteht vor dem Hintergrund der rasanten technischen Entwicklung und der zunehmenden Bedeutung von digitaler Technik in allen Lebensbereichen das...

Die demografische Alterung stellt die (Alters-)Sicherungssysteme langfristig vor große finanzielle Herausforderungen. Daher wurden verschiedene Reformen implementiert, die auf eine Verlängerung des Erwerbslebens abzielen. So wurden unter anderem Frühverrentungsmöglichkeiten eingeschränkt, die Regelaltersgrenze erhöht und aktive Arbeitsmarktpolitike...

The housing sector is currently under pressure: demographic shifts, urbanisation as well as the availability and costs of housing have led to increasing prices. Concerns are being raised that these rising housing costs could lead to intergenerational conflicts. While older generations often live in their privatelyowned dwellings, younger cohorts st...

Demographic aging puts social insurance systems under immense pressure as frailty risks increase with age. The statutory long-term care insurance in Germany (GPV), whose society has been aging for decades due to low fertility and decreasing mortality, faces massive future pressure. The present study presents a stochastic outlook on long-term care i...

Bis wann und unter welchen Umständen Personen im Alter arbeiten wollen bzw. müssen stellt eine kontrovers diskutierte Frage der aktuellen arbeitsmarkt- und rentenpolitischen Debatte dar. Seit 2012 steigt die Altersgrenze für die Regelaltersrente stufenweise an und wird im Jahr 2031 erstmals 67 Jahre erreicht haben. Bereits heute lassen sich jedoch...

Ageism is a widespread phenomenon and constitutes a significant threat to older people's well-being. Identifying the factors contributing to ageism is critical to inform policies that minimise its societal impact. In this systematic review, we gathered and summarised empirical studies exploring the key determinants of ageism against older people fo...

Objectives Previous research has shown that poor physical and mental health are important risk factors for early work exit. We examined potential differences in this association in older workers (50+) across educational levels. Methods Coordinated analyses were carried out in longitudinal data sets from four European countries: the Netherlands (Lo...

The public opinion literature has found that the age of the benefit recipient is an important determinant in the formation of welfare state attitudes. Older people are perceived as more deserving of help and also punished less for not accepting a job. We argue that such a preferential treatment of older people depends on the social and economic con...

Bis zum Jahr 2050 wird es etwa 23 Millionen über 65-Jährige in Deutschland geben. Dadurch wird es gesellschaftlich wie individuell zunehmend notwendig, gute Voraussetzungen für das Rentenalter als Lebensphase zu schaffen. Um es bei guter Gesundheit und Lebensqualität zu verbringen, sollte bereits die Zeit vor dem Übergang zur Vorbereitung genutzt w...

Vor dem Hintergrund der demografischen Alterung wird der Bedarf an professioneller und privater Pflege zukünftig steigen. Aus Gründen der Kostendämmung verlagern viele Wohlfahrtsstaaten Pflege in die Familie, sodass die Zahl Pflegender, die Pflegebedürftige zu Hause privat und unentgeltlich betreuen („familiäre Pflege“ im Folgenden), voraussichtlic...

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discourse on labour market discrimination by introducing an analytical process model that offers a template for the systematic analysis of discrimination within the process of labour market integration. Its usage and contribution to the field is exemplified by applying the proposed model t...

*** For the published paper, see: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340515272_Determinants_of_Ageism_against_Older_Adults_A_Systematic_Review *** Ageism is a widespread phenomenon and constitutes a significant threat to older people’s well-being. Identifying the factors contributing to ageism is critical to design policies that minimize its...

Modernization theory has often been used to explain country differences in levels of ageism. The commentary at hand questions its usefulness in the analysis of ageism today for two reasons. First, modernization theory was developed to discuss social status of older people, not ageism. Second, social policies and management practices that emerged wi...

BACKGROUND Digital healthcare is becoming more and more important but also bears the risk of further increasing the digital divide as not all persons have the skills and knowledge to fully benefit from potential advantages. In particular, older persons have less experience with the internet and, hence, are in danger of being excluded. Knowledge on...

Background Digital health care is becoming increasingly important, but it has the risk of further increasing the digital divide, as not all individuals have the opportunity, skills, and knowledge to fully benefit from potential advantages. In particular, elderly people have less experience with the internet, and hence, they are in danger of being e...

Background In the last two decades labor market participation for older employees has undergone a gradual political paradigm shift in many European countries from a policy of early retirement to one of extending working lives and active aging. Objective This study investigated if this political paradigm shift is causing new social inequalities in...

In a society of long life, digital media is a major issue for supporting older adults’ well-being and societal participation. However, there are many hindrances in regard to learnability and appropriability of technological devices for older adults.The project ACCESS provides a conceptual framework for examining, installing and evaluating innovativ...

Background: The aging of societies will increase the need for healthcare services and lead to a growing number of older employees. These two developments are relevant in the healthcare sector (HCS), which is of rising societal and economic importance and at the same time employs many older people. Objective: This article, which was written within t...

In der Arbeitsteilungsforschung lassen sich zwei grundsätzliche Theoriestränge unterscheiden, die erklären wie Hausarbeit innerhalb von Paaren verteilt wird: Ökonomische Theorien gehen davon aus, dass – unabhängig vom Geschlecht – grundsätzlich der- oder diejenige Partner, welche am Arbeitsmarkt weniger Einkommen erwirtschaftet, mehr Hausarbeit übe...

As a response to the ageing population, the United Kingdom (UK) government, like many others, has increased the State Pension Age. This has involved equalising women’s State Pension Age with men’s, raising it from 60 to 65, with further increases already underway. It has been argued that a key issue with how this change has been implemented is the...

This study investigates how flexibility in working hours affects retirement timing. It tests the assumption that decreasing weekly working hours delays retirement and extends working life. Using data from four waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), we analyze wh...

In the last 20 years, German policy makers have reformed the pension system and the labor market with the aim of prolonging working life. As a consequence, older workers' employment rate and average retirement age rose. In addition to the actual behavior of today's retiree cohorts, the reforms also influence the expected retirement age of future pe...

Political representatives frequently make decisions with far-reaching implications for citizens and societies. Most of these decisions are choices in situations in which the probabilities of gains and losses are hard to estimate. Although decision-making is crucial to politics, existing research has hardly ever addressed the political representatio...

All over the developed world, populations as a whole and the workforce within them are ageing. Old age discrimination in the sphere of the workplace, prejudices against older workers, and discrimination of older employees have moved into the focus of politicians, employers, trade unions, and social scientists alike. As ageism at the workplace has n...

BACKGROUND Physical and mental health are important markers of quality of life. Little is known about how they unfold in tandem in the last years of life. OBJECTIVE We take a life-course perspective to identify typical joint trajectories of functional limitations and depression in the last eight years before death. Our objective is to assess whethe...

Zusammenfassung In den letzten 15 Jahren hat in Deutschland ein rapider Anstieg der Beschäftigungsrate älterer Arbeitnehmender stattgefunden. Innerhalb dieser Gruppe war der Anstieg am steilsten für die über 65 Jährigen. Die Anzahl dieser arbeitenden Rentnern*innen hat sich zwischen 2000 und 2015 mehr als verdoppelt. Noch sind die älteren Arbeitneh...

Diskriminierung aufgrund ethnischer Zugehörigkeit ist zwar mit rechtlichen und sozialen Normen unvereinbar, wird jedoch vielfach empirisch beobachtet. Die vorliegende Studie geht der Frage nach, ob ethnische Diskriminierung Bestandteil des sozialen Miteinanders in einem Kernbereich der Gesellschaft, der Politik, ist. Der Beitrag untersucht ethnisch...

From a political economy perspective, politicians often fail to implement structural reforms. In this contribution we investigate if the resistance to reform is based on the differences in the risk preferences of voters, politicians, and bureaucrats. Based on three surveys among the German electorate, 175 members of the Federal German Parliament an...

We analyse the role labour and retirement policies play in promoting or counteracting ageism in the labour market. Data from the World Value Survey (Wave 6, n=27,264) show that in Romania (33.9%), Russia (20.8%) and Poland (16.4%), a 70-year-old boss is considered least acceptable – an opinion least found in Japan (1.2%) and Germany (1.9%). At the...

Population aging is threatening the financial long-term sustainability of pension systems. The UK government has reacted by bringing the state pension age for women in line with that of men, raising it from 60 to 65, over the 2010–2020 period. This will have differential implications for women’s health and wellbeing depending on their awareness of...

In the scientific and the public debate demographic ageing is sometimes perceived as an unstoppable “grey tide” which will inevitably lead to a conflict between the old and young generation. In this paper we empirically evaluate whether we find any evidence for an intergenerational conflict in Europe and which factors might influence its severity....

To a backdrop of ageing societies, pension crises and labour market reforms, this book investigates how the policy shift from early retirement to active ageing has affected individual retirement behaviour. Focusing on eleven European countries, the United States and Japan, it brings together leading international experts to analyze recent changes i...

The concluding chapter summarizes the theoretical approach of the book and provides a stylized overview of the results from the international comparison and the 13 single country studies. It highlights that the major pension system and labor market reforms throughout the last 15 years in Europe, Japan, and the USA have been effective in meeting the...

Until the early 1990s German pension policy was based on a culture of “early retirement.” The result was that retiring before the official retirement age was more the rule than the exception. In the 1990s policymakers became aware of the financial burden this policy of “early retirement” in combination with the aging of the German society was causi...

This comparative chapter serves as a stylized frame of comparison for the single-country chapters of the book. It briefly contrasts the development of retirement transitions in the 13 countries selected for this book by showing older workers’ employment trends over the last decades and allowing us to contrast trends in early retirement (in the 1970...

This study investigates whether older workers have adapted their preferred retirement age to the pension reforms aimed at extending working life. Based on data from Eurobarometer and the European Social Survey in 12 European countries, the analysis shows that future pensioners have indeed increased their preferred retirement age and adjusted to the...

Background Over the last 10 years the German pension system has undergone several reforms including the abandonment of early retirement policies and an increase in the statutory retirement age. Consequently, the average retirement age has increased and future retiree cohorts have adjusted the retirement expectations and preferences as to when they...

Zusammenfassung Vor dem Hintergrund alternder Gesellschaften in Europa wird zunehmend vor einem Generationenkonflikt gewarnt. Doch haben Alte und Junge tatsächlich unterschiedliche Interessen und damit entgegen gesetzte Politikpräferenzen? Hierauf geben wir eine theoretische und eine empirische Antwort. Wir zeigen spieltheoretisch, dass Alte wie Ju...

The possibility of upcoming intergenerational conflict in an aging society is a recurrent topic in scholarly and public debate. However, do old and young people really have opposing political preferences? We give a theoretical as well as an empirical answer to this question. Game theoretical modelling leads us to the conclusion that both old and yo...

For almost three decades since the 1970s, many European countries followed a strategy of early retirement to mediate the repercussions of increasing globalization and rising economic insecurities (Blossfeld et al., 2006, 2011). Initially intended only as a temporary strategy, early retirement soon turned into a common political practice. The establ...

German Abstract: Dieses Papier untersucht wie sich der Renteneintritt eines Partners auf die Verteilung der Hausarbeit zwischen Paaren auswirkt. Zur Erklarung wie Hausarbeit zwischen den Partnern verteilt wird, gibt es zwei Theoriestrange. Die okonomischen Theorien gehen davon aus, dass der- oder diejenige der Partner, welcher am Arbeitsmarkt wenig...

Das Papier geht der Frage nach, ob sich Berufspolitikerinnen und Berufspolitiker in ihren Risikoeinstellungen systematisch von der allgemeinen Bevölkerung unterscheiden. In einer schriftlichen Befragung von Mitgliedern des 17. Deutschen Bundestags wurde Ende 2011 die Risikoeinstellungen ermittelt und die erhobenen Daten in Relation zu Befragten des...

The article analyzes the question of whether career politicians differ systematically from the general population in terms of their attitudes toward risk. A written survey of members of the 17th German Bundestag in late 2011 identified their risk attitudes, and the survey data was set in relation to respondents to the German Socio-Economic Panel St...