Current and Emerging Trends in Aging and Work

This timely volume provides an up-to-date and comprehensive summary about what is known about aging and work and addresses the challenges and opportunities confronting older workers and organizations. The authors describe current and emerging topics related to work and aging adults such as working in teams, the increasing diversity of the labor force, work and caregiving, the implications of technology for an aging workforce, and health and wellness issues. The authorship is international; the authors are renowned for their respective work in the topical areas and represent a broad range of disciplines within academia, as well as offer perspectives from government and policy.

Jobs, organizations, the labor market, and the workforce are experiencing dramatic change. Workers of all ages, including older workers, need to interact with the wide variety of ubiquitous technologies that are reshaping work processes, job content, work settings, communication strategies, and the delivery of training, and this book aims to update readers on the particular issues facing today’s aging adults in the workplace.

The chapters’ broad and inclusive scope encompasses:

• Workplace aging and jobs in the 21st century
• The retirement income security outlook for older workers
• Population aging, age discrimination, and age discrimination protections
• Older workers and the contemporary labor market
• The role of aging, age diversity, and age heterogeneity within teams
• The intersection of family caregiving and work

Current and Emerging Trends in Aging and Work is relevant to a broad audience of academic researchers, practitioners, and students in psychology, sociology, management, engineering (industrial and human factors), the health sciences, gerontology/geriatrics, and public health. It is also a useful resource for government and policy leaders, as well as workers and managers in the public and private sectors.

• emerging issues in aging and work
• technology and older workers
• geriatrics/gerontology
• occupational health and safety of older workers
• age-friendly workplaces
• older worker performance
• training older workers
• family caregiving and work
• employment and retirement patterns and trends
• economic impacts
• age discrimination in the workplace
• skill obsolescence among aging workers
• motivation and older workers
• demographics of an aging workforce
• low-wage jobs and the elderly/elders
• program and policy issues
• human factors engineering
• contemporary labor market and older workers
• health and wellness issues
• disability among older workers

• Center on Aging and Behavioral Research, Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Care, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, USA

  Sara J. Czaja

• Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Miami, Miami, USA

  Joseph Sharit

• Center on Aging and Work, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, USA

  Jacquelyn B. James

Sara J. Czaja, PhD, is Director at the Center on Aging and Behavioral Research in the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Care at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, New York, USA.

Joseph Sharit, PhD, is Research Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Professor (secondary appointment) in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Anesthesiology at the University of Miami in Miami, Florida, USA.

Jacquelyn B. James, PhD, is Co-Director of the Center on Aging and Work and Research Professor in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA.

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