The number of women over 50 at work has increased since the start of the recession. According to the report, Age, gender and the jobs recession, from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), based on official statistics from the Labour Force Survey, there are 271,000 (8%) more women aged 50-64 in the labour market than at the start of the recession, and 200,000 (6.2%) more in work. The number of men in this age group in employment has risen by only 3,000.
Women aged 50-64, and men and women aged 65 and over are the only age groups to have registered an increase in both the number in work and employment rates since the start of the jobs recession and have also registered the smallest increases in unemployment.
People aged 25-34 are the only other age group to see a rise in employment over the course of the jobs recession, with the number in work increasing by 249,000 (4%), much of the increase likely to be due to inward migration.
Across all age groups there are 387,000 fewer men in work (a net fall of 2.4%) than in the first quarter of 2008. By contrast the number of women in work is only 8,000 (0.05%) lower.
Although the number of unemployed women has increased by almost half a million, to reach a record level of 1.12 million, this is not primarily due to fewer jobs for women but instead to a relatively large rise (of 438,000) in the number of women participating in the labour market.
Dr John Philpott, Chief Economic Adviser at the CIPD, comments:
“When it comes to work, older people have clearly fared better than young people during the jobs recession. But what’s also clear is that older women have done best of all.
“While a combination of population ageing and fewer people wanting to retire early, either for financial reasons or because of a broader desire to prolong their working lives, is boosting the older workforce, it is older women that are getting most of the available jobs.
“Just why this is happening requires further examination, though with the modern generation of 50 something women more likely to view Madonna than Grandma Grey as a role model, the economically active older woman is well on course to be ever more prominent in British workplaces in the coming years.
“However, the relatively good outcome for older women during the recession is no cause for complacency about the need to continually stress the business case for an even more age diverse workforce as the economy starts to recover, especially with so much public policy action understandably focused on cutting youth unemployment.
“Simplistic talk about older people staying in jobs at the expense of the young must not be allowed to put a brake on progress toward nudging employers to do even better in coping with demographic change. An ageing workforce presents both challenges and opportunities for employers, who at some point in the not too distant future will struggle to fill vacancies unless they recruit and retain older workers, women and men, in even far greater numbers.”
