As the fourth publication in the Policy Press ‘Ageing in a Global Context’ book series, the co-edited volume Gender, Ageing and Extended Working Life: Cross-national Perspectives makes a timely contribution to our understanding of the gender issues that are inherent to policies and practices aimed at extending the duration of working lives and/or reforming retirement schemes in contemporary Western societies. Based on a broad critical ageing perspective and lifecourse approach, the 11 contributions challenge widely accepted assumptions about later-life work and retirement by grounding their reflections in empirical evidence from a range of national and international sources. The five co-editors are all renowned experts in the study of older workers and have been exploring the gender equality issues arising from policies aimed at extending working lives (EWL) for many years. Here, they adopt a comparative perspective in order to stress diversity in the gender implications of EWL policies and practices within and across national boundaries.

The book is structured around two main parts, along with a substantive, agenda-setting concluding chapter. Part One usefully sets the scene, by addressing the ‘empirical, theoretical and policy issues’ of gendering the study of later-life work in three distinct chapters. First, Debra Street challenges the over-simplistic assumption that encouraging older workers to delay retirement represents the sole possible solution to the challenge of dealing with demographic ageing and ensuring the long-term viability of existing pension schemes. She uses a range of international data sources to unpack the complex multi-level interactions that operate within and across national labour markets to identify the mechanisms that produce specific disadvantages for older women workers, and which are often overlooked in EWL policy initiatives. In Chapter 2, Clary Krekula and Sarah Vickerstaff adopt a similar critical appraisal of ‘theoretical and conceptual issues in the extending working lives agenda’ (p. 27). They show how policy makers tend to portray older workers not only as a ‘problem’, but also as a homogenous group with shared interests and similar concerns. They also highlight a tendency to under-estimate the obstacles older workers might face in extending their working lives. The authors question the widespread expectation that all older people should continue working until or beyond standard retirement age, irrespective of their employment histories, family circumstances or working conditions. In light of these issues, the chapter by Áine Ní Léime and Wendy Loretto insists on the need to consider the life and work histories of older workers when defining EWL policies and considering their likely outcomes. By proposing a range of ‘gender perspectives on extended working life policies’, they provide a critical analysis of the potential implications of current EWL policies for male and female workers. They show how a number of policies tend to reproduce existing power relations and, thus, perpetuate long-standing gender inequalities.

This three-dimensional analytical overview provides a very useful background to Part Two of the book, which presents in-depth analyses of EWL practices and policy debates in seven Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries: Australia, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, selected to cover a diverse range of welfare regimes. Each chapter of Part Two builds on the critical ageing framework outlined previously, but focuses on the most significant issues and recent developments in each of the selected national contexts. The authors all analyse the ways in which national EWL debates are framed and demonstrate the actual or potential influence of existing policies on the entrenchment or reduction of gender hierarchies. Although it could be regretted that the lessons learned from each of these country case studies are not analysed more systematically from a comparative perspective, each chapter provides a wealth of information and original data and paints a clear picture of the ‘state-of-the-art’ in a given national context. The substantive, programmatic conclusion, by Sarah Vickerstaff, Debra Street, Áine Ní Léime and Clary Krekula, summarises the outstanding ‘research and policy agenda’ that needs to be addressed in order to face the ‘needs for work in later life’. This conclusive chapter suggests new and stimulating perspectives for a gender-inclusive approach to EWL, based on recognition of fact that the experiences, expectations and aspirations of older workers are always embedded in specific social, political and economic contexts. It would have been interesting to extend the critical ageing framework to the study of non-Western societies, where a better understanding of the gender consequences of EWL is also required.

Overall, this book offers a welcome, evidence-based perspective on extended working lives in which the arguments are inspired by rich empirical data. It will provide an informative and thought-provoking read for graduate students, scholars, practitioners and policy makers interested in the gender equality implications of EWL and retirement reforms in contemporary Western societies.