Changing TimesNumber 4 May 2002 Newsletter of the Work & Age TrustWORK AND AGE ISSUESon the international sceneLast year, Work & Age Trust Chairperson, Roger Tweedy, was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to study future work issues including work & age issues overseas. Roger asked a range of organisations in the US and Canada how they were planning for the effects of the workforce ageing phenomena. This issue of Changing Times reports on some of the organisations he visited, people he met and ideas he discussed. Roger s trip and his findings were affected by the timing of his visit September 2001. Roger refers to the effect of September 11 in his report. If you would like further information contact Roger on workage@xtra.co.nz. Issues at the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Washington DC A major issue for AARP is the third age . The AARP brand is one of the most recognised in the US, up there with the Cokes and Nikes. Yet the definition as representing retired persons is an oxymoron. AARP s membership is open to people over 50 years. Its big challenge is to effectively represent both baby boomers and their parents. One of the people I met with in this large organisation was Clare Hushbeck, the Economics Issues Team Leader. Clare is concerned with highlighting age and change issues to state governments. She was particularly concerned with understanding the worklife patterns of the older worker. More and more people in the US are wanting to work after they have retired . AARP find that addressing work issues for this group of people is not yet accepted. They are challenged over their provision of employer programmes and their Small Business Center. New Zealand NGOs face the same challenge. They have a group of older people who still want to participate in all forms of work - not just the roles perceived as suitable for older people . The AARP Web site (www.aarp.org) has a wealth of information on all issues affecting older people.
Canadian Voluntary Sector Future of Work Project I was privileged to be a participant in this major government voluntary sector project. I was involved in the human resources think tank which focused on the perceived skills shortages within the sector in the future. There was far more concern about future skills shortages amongst Canadian organisations than I have seen in New Zealand. Their concerns were primarily around workforce ageing and the brain drain . However, there was also a focus on youth. Canada 25, a campaign organisation driven by young people, is entirely devoted to the question of How Canada can attract and retain young talent. Their website is www.canada25.com Jeremy Rifkin and The Foundation on Economic Trends, Washington, DC I visited the Foundation on Economic Trends because I wanted to talk with leading work & age theorist, Jeremy Rifkin. Rifkin, in his book The End of Work (1995) proposes that in the technologically driven workplace of the future, the market will only require 20% of the working age population. In this future world Rifkin expresses real concern about how young people will engage in society in the 21st century and beyond. His two possible solutions are spreading work amongst more people through shorter working weeks and creating work within civil society. I wanted to know where Jeremy s research and thinking had led since 1995. Unfortunately I was due to visit the Foundation on 13th September and Jeremy was delayed in Europe following the major airways disruption after September 11. However, I did speak to others about Jeremy s ideas. Several experienced sector people I spoke with in Canada suggested these ideas would only be raised by someone with no third sector knowledge. Some of these people believed that the third sector is the future. The Foundation on Economic Trends, 1660 L Street, Suite 216, Washington DC 20036. Ph. 202-466-2823; Fax 202-429-9602. www.foet.org
Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD) Ottawa The Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD) is one of Canada's most authoritative voices. It promotes greater social and economic security for all Canadians. A national, self-supporting, non-profit organization, the CCSD's main product is information and its main activity is research. It focuses on concerns such as income security, employment, poverty, child welfare, pensions and government social policies. This type of organisation providing non-government social policy development and promotion of issues (there are a number in Canada) is unfortunately missing from the New Zealand policy marketplace. CCSD http://www.ccsd.ca Caledon Institute Ottawa The Caledon Institute is an independent organisation with five permanent staff. Despite its smallness it produces an impressive volume of work. Two features of their work programme are
The Institute addresses ageing issues in reports such as Community-Based Poverty Reduction , Strategies for a Caring Society , and Job Insecurity . Sherri Torjman, at the Caledon Institute proved to be a key player in Canada. She wrote a paper in 1997 entitled Pension Systems in Crisis. In this paper she identifies a trio of challenges that I feel are very pertinent to the issue of age and work, and are often not considered in the debate in New Zealand. The trio of challenges i. the changing face of retirement Retirement is no longer equated with a single age (i.e. 65 and older) as it was in the past. Retirement must be understood more as a phase almost as a 15-year span from the early-to-mid 50s to the mid-to-late 60s. Yet the various programs within the pension system still function largely as though there is a single age of retirement. The pathways to retirement also are becoming more diverse; some workers are moving into retirement quite comfortably while others are not. Some workers are being pulled into early retirement through attractive monetary incentives. But more than one-quarter of workers are being pushed into retirement against their will through lay-off, lack of work and health factors. ii. the changing labour market The polarization of the labour market and the increase in part-time employment and low-wage job opportunities, even for some highly-educated young people, has profound implications for pension protection in future. Most Canadian workers are unable to make adequate private provision for their retirement. Those who earn below-average wages tend to be excluded from employer-sponsored pension programs. Most Canadians, in future, like today, will rely on public programs for much or all of their retirement income. Moreover, chronically high unemployment poses serious problems. Lack of work reduces the number of pensionable years for individuals and weakens the contributory tax base of public programs. And there are questions as to whether the labour market problems experienced by young people today will undermine their support for the pension system for which they will bear much of the burden. It is of interest that calls for greater privatization of Canada s pension system come at time when the labour market is increasingly insecure. In fact, one could argue that the publicly-supported components of the pension system are all the more important in the face of a labour market that cannot be counted upon to provide the protections it once did both with respect to current and future incomes. iii. the changing labour force Our pension system was designed at a time when the typical family included a working father, a stay-at-home mother, two and one-half children and a dog. But over the past two decades, there has been a dramatic increase in women s participation in the paid labour market. Retirement is often discussed as though the retired population is a homogeneous group. However, disaggregation of the data by sex shows dramatic differences between the levels and sources of retirement income of men and women. Many men in their 50s are beginning their retirement while many women are still actively engaged in the labour market at that age. Women are disadvantaged in retirement relative to men because their lifetime average earnings are lower and their workforce attachment is more sporadic due to caregiving responsibilities. While private pension coverage has improved for women, still only 43 percent of female paid workers are covered by occupational pension plans compared to 52 percent of male paid workers. Most women cannot afford to contribute to RRSPs. Pension reform must take into account the differences in male and female labour force participation. Any proposed changes must not create an inordinate burden for certain categories of workers notably women and low-income workers generally. *********************************** Another of the Institute s projects is the Opportunity 2000 Project. This project has been a remarkably ambitious and, in many respects, successful community-based poverty reduction project. In short, it mobilised a large multi-sectoral network in an effort to substantially reduce poverty. Its target was to reduce poverty for 2000 people by the year 2000. The project involved everything from community and micro-enterprise initiatives to personal and employment counseling, from job enhancement for the working poor to 'customized training' programmes. It also built the poverty reduction capacity of its nonprofit partners, raised awareness of poverty in the community generally and built relationships among four key stakeholder groups (nonprofit organizations, government, business and low-income residents). A model of interest to New Zealanders is the individual development account model . Low income residents receive training in money management skills, save a sum of money to be matched by the project's financial partner on a 3:1 ratio, and plan for the investment of the resulting financial asset in potentially life altering initiatives e.g. return to school/training, starting a business. In one project, sole support mothers saved $250 over the course of a year which was matched with $750. Each planned their own investments. In a second project, participants were simultaneously enrolled in a computer training project. They used the assets they built to purchase personal computers. This project is continuing as part of a national demonstration project. www.op2000.org The Caledon Institute is a great resource for our work in New Zealand, and a model of an organizational type we lack here - an independent policy agency. I was pleased that they were particularly interested in two New Zealand projects -the Computers in Homes (2020 Communications Trust) Programme, and the Immigrant Work Mentoring Programme being developed by the Home Tutor Programme in Wellington. The Caledon Institute: www.caledoninst.org
University of Waterloo Environmental Studies School Sally Lerner, Associate Professor Emeritus Sally, an international expert on basic income issues, talked about the slow uptake of issues around the notion of basic income. She is co-author of the book Basic Income Economic Security for all Canadians which outlines the key aspects of this alternative. Sally s commitment to this key plank of the structure of work in the future has been total and she has highlighted the difficulties in promoting systemic change. Her book demonstrates how the establishment of an adequate basic income can be an effective response to the three major challenges currently facing Canada in the new era of new technologies and a globalising economy. The first challenge is how to maintain full engagement of Canadians in their families, communities, and the larger society if employment for all in secure, adequately waged jobs becomes an unrealistic goal. The second challenge is how to plan effectively for the better quality of life that the new economic and technologies can offer if these fundamental changes are steered in positive directions. This includes volunteering and flexecurity - more security for those in the flexible work employers now are requiring. The third challenge is how we can respond to the need to care for the environment, and to the need to maintain ourselves in ways that are less destructive to our children s future. Sally argues that basic income is a necessary part of the debate that society must have to secure a sustainable future. As Sally has recently taken early retirement from the University and is working portfolio style she was very interested in the work of the Work and Age Trust and our NEWORK Centre. Youth Business Enterprise The Canadian Experience The Toronto based YOUTH BUSINESS CENTRE www.yes.on.ca is one of the few youth based business incubators in Canada. It was established under the auspices of YES Toronto and I met with both the Centre Director Johanne Larouche and the President of YES Toronto Nancy Schaefer. I was also able to talk briefly with other staff (total 2.5) and a young client of the Centre. The centre has been operating for around 3 years arising from a need seen by the parent organisation to focus on assistance to young people looking at the self - employment option. At this time there was seen to be a shortage of start up space in the central city, and this encouraged a focus on provision of space. This part of the service, however, has proved to be less important to clients, and problematic in terms of income recovery. YBC also extended its age criteria to 35 years because, as Johanne said, you often have to know that you don t like to work for a boss before you have the motivation to work for yourself . 80% of the centre s activity has been around the free hands on workshops and seminars conducted by both the Centre s Development /Training Officer and experienced people (all voluntarily) from the business world. They are currently setting up a mentoring programme. They estimate that only about a third of successful organisations seek incubator space. The main sources of funding for the service government grants, charitable foundations, and a little corporate funding just like New Zealand. The fees for service from clients, even after 3 years, remain around 10% of running costs. The full-service package is $100 per month (work station, reception, voicemail, PO Box, storage etc). Johanne believes that redesigning the space so users have greater privacy will result in a higher uptake of space. The key message from the centre was that developing success stories to take to funders/sponsors is painfully slow. The Canadian Youth Business Foundation This is a national organisation that enables young entrepreneurs to pursue their ambitions of building successful enterprises by providing business assistance not otherwise accessible to them . The Foundation is funded by corporate Canada and has three main deliverables - Loans of up to $15,000; Mentoring; and a web site YouthBusiness.com specifically for the young entrepreneur age group 18 -29. It is modelled on the Prince s Youth Business Trust in the UK. This is a highly professional organisation similarly structured to our Enterprise NZ Trust. It works through community partner organisations who handle the on-the-ground support under approved guidelines. Aspects of the Canadian Youth Business Foundation include :
One of the workers I spoke to believes that the keys to success of the organisation are its focus on youth as the future of business (good corporate citizen) and its ability to provide a clear link between enterprising young people (the youth market) and businesses. Youth Business Centre www.yes.on.ca
Notices
************************** Research on Ageing at Victoria University By 2020 half the New Zealand population will be over 40. This change in the balance of the population will have a profound impact on everything from consumer behaviour to voting patterns, from planning decisions to lifestyles, as well as the more traditional ageing issues of retirement provision and healthcare. It will have a dramatic impact on patterns of paid and unpaid work. Employers will need older workers to cope with impending skill shortages and a decrease in young workers. From the worker s point of view, paid work participation is likely to be prolonged, requiring upskilling, retraining and adjustment to changed working conditions. These are some of the issues which will be examined by a new multidisciplinary centre for ageing-related social research at Victoria University - the New Zealand Institute for Research on Ageing (NZiRA). NZiRA aims promote research and collaboration among researchers on ageing throughout New Zealand and internationally, but also to communicate research findings to improve public awareness, practice, and policy. This year NZiRA is planning a seminar series, a visit from a US professor whose main interest is issues for ageing men (the TOWER fellowship), and two publications a review of statistics on older people in New Zealand and an annotated bibliography of recent New Zealand work in the area. The institute is also planning research in a variety of areas, building on expertise at Victoria and its network of over 200 individuals and organizations. Please visit the NZiRA web-site - www.ac.nz/ageing-institute - or contact the Director, Judith Davey, with any queries or suggestions. You are welcome to join our e-mail network. Judith Davey, New Zealand Institute for Research on Ageing, ____________________________________
Book review Dejobbing yourself In his book Jobshift, William Bridges suggests that the permanent 9-5 job belongs to a past era. He suggests that those of us who are all too aware of this learn to market ourselves. That is, we see employers as one side of market and us as the other side. Instead, he suggests we look at what we can exchange with employers. Begin by assessing your personal D.A.T.A. desires, abilities, temperament and assets. If you are post-job there is plenty in this book for you. Bridges puts words to the experiences many of us have and suggests some solutions. It is aimed at what has been traditionally the male world of work. Women are comparatively new in the job world, traditionally having run their own businesses, paid or unpaid, running households, farms, involvement in voluntary work, part time and temporary positions, piecing everything together as they go. While the women s movement of the sixties opened up the work world of men to women allowing them to earn more, it did not give satisfactory recognition to what is now becoming a way of life for many men, whether they like it or not. The book suffers from confusion about who its audience is and has some inherent contradictions. I believe the confusion is caused by a failure to address the fundamental shift he is talking about in the nature of employer/employee relationships and the relationship between organisations and individuals. These are no longer clearly defined and largely exclusive relationships. The terminology needs to change to match his suggestion that we all see ourselves as players in the market place both as groups and individuals. Neither does he address the tension between the statistics which show that fewer and fewer people are willing to sacrifice personal considerations to organisational ones (p.230), and the organisational demand that people be available whenever needed and be stood down when not needed. Changing Times is edited by Elizabeth Clements. If you would like to contribute send your experiences of portfolio work, book reviews, articles on these issues or comments on matters in this edition to portfolio@paradise.net.nz or to PO Box 9826, Wellington. Work & Age Trust WORK AND AGE TRUST NZ Inc.
Level 2, Willbank House
NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETINGThe AGM of the above Trust will be held at our premises Level 2 Willbank House 57 Willis Street Wellington Thursday 6th June 2002 Commencing 4pm All members and supporters of the Trust most welcome. Following the business light refreshments will be served rsvp to Rei Ngatai, Trust Administrator workage@xtra.co.nz
|
© 2003 The Nework Centre | email neworknz@yahoo.co.nz |
Top of the page |