Work, Family, and Legitimacy in Later Life

A number of authors have compared productive and active aging within the policy debate on demographic change (Lassen & Moreira, Reference Lassen and Moriera2014; Walker, Reference Walker2009). As Moody (Reference Moody, Bass, Caro and Chen1993) pointed out, the positive potential of productive aging would be in assigning “positive value and connotation to age, quite in contrast to stereotypical ideas that associate old age with decrepitude, passivity, or decline” (p. 83). Bass, Caro, and Chen (Reference Bass, Caro and Chen1993) have refined productive aging to mean “Any activity by an older individual that contributes to producing goods and services or develops the capacity to produce them” (p. 6). It unfortunately left little room for family, other than as a site in which older adults could help others to engage in working life itself. A later extension of the definition, by Bass and Caro (Reference Bass, Caro, Morrow-Howell, Hinterlong and Sherraden2001), specifically excluded activities “done for self enhancement”, in which grandparenting became a form of hybrid activity, partly productive, in a secondhand sort of way, and partly self-indulgent. Since that time, international policy on aging has progressively narrowed the meaning of active aging to productivity in the narrow sense of work and work-related activities (Moulaert & Biggs, Reference Moulaert and Biggs2013).

The language of productive aging also supported a re-definition of traditional retirement ages and activities. The idea of leading a productive later life challenged retirement as a process of social and economic exclusion: “Exclusion contributed to the popular perception of older people as being politically, as well as economically, inactive. This then fed into age discriminatory stereotypes that portrayed older people as passive, acquiescent, family-oriented, and disinterested in social and political participation” (Walker, Reference Walker2009, p. 78). In this formulation, family is positioned as a passive element of the productive endeavour. Whereas the productivist approach might provide solutions to the economic challenges emerging as a result of population aging, it does not adequately address other implications, such as changes in the adult life course, families, and intergenerational relations. Indeed, an extension of working life may leave less time for family-based intergenerational relations, especially when this is combined with evidence on the poor quality of work made available to many older adults (Vickerstaff, Reference Vickerstaff2010).

An alternative stream of research indicates that it is in the areas of family life and intergenerational relations that the effects of population aging are perhaps most keenly experienced. Bengtson, Rosenthal, and Burton (Reference Bengtson, Rosenthal, Burton, Binstock and George1990) referred to it as a “quiet revolution” while Ozanne (Reference Ozanne, Borowski, Encel and Ozanne2007) viewed these shifts as transformative, both in terms of family structures and of values. Powell (Reference Powell2005) has referred to these changes as positioning family as a critical “site upon which expected norms of intergenerational relations are being built” (p. 64). A number of longstanding trends are responsible for changes to the adult life course and intergenerational relations, including increased longevity and declining fertility, increased geographic mobility, changes to family values and behaviours, plus increased diversity in the forms a family might take (Bengtson et al., Reference Bengtson, Rosenthal, Burton, Binstock and George1990). In addition, changing life course patterns – such as the blurring of life course stages and shifts in the time dedicated to education, work, and retirement – have been remodeling the traditional tripartite life course of childhood, working life, and retirement, with their accompanying family and intergenerational relations. Age distribution within the family, which was once pyramid-like in structure, has become what Bengtson and Lowenstein (Reference Bengtson and Lowenstein2003) referred to as a “beanpole” – a family structure the shape of which is long and thin with more family generations alive but with fewer members in each generation. For Ozanne (Reference Ozanne, Borowski, Encel and Ozanne2007), these longstanding trends suggest the marking out of “new intergenerational territory” that comes with significant opportunity, but also with considerable risk.

Longer but More Risky Lives?

Taylor-Gooby (Reference Taylor-Gooby and Taylor-Gooby2004) has suggested that new social risks have emerged “as a result of the economic and social changes associated with the transition to a post-industrial society” (pp. 2–3). ‘New social risk’ policies would include cutbacks to welfare expenditure, encouraging people into work and interventions into areas of life, such as the family, previously considered private (Taylor-Gooby, Reference Taylor-Gooby and Taylor-Gooby2004). These new risks can be precipitated by changing family structures, changing labour markets, and changing demographics and may largely affect women, the young, and the low-skilled (Bonoli, Reference Bonoli2005). Similarly, Standing’s (2011) description of a new precariat charts the increasing uncertainty and lack of control over time that dominates the lives of younger workers, the traditional working class, and migrant groups. Older adults are increasingly being drawn into this policy space as they are exposed to changing labour markets, more-insecure pension arrangements, and a re-consideration of the family–work–life balance. Little mention is made of family or of later life as sites of precarity; however, it is relatively easy to see trends such as the casualization of the mature age workforce, the increasing use of older workers as a pool of surplus labour linked to increasingly lengthy statutory pension ages, tensions around affordable health care, and even the growth of transnational families and “beanpoleing” effects as contributors to an increasingly precarious old age.

Risks, then, can emerge between a rapidly changing policy context and a set of identities and expectations associated with aging and family life, which may or may not be evolving in similar directions. The struggle for dominance that emerges between different policy narratives such as those based on work and on family would, by making claims on social legitimacy and personal identity, be a particular instance of such risk.

Australia: A Case Example

Australian population figures generally reflect international trends in advanced economies (United Nations Population Fund [UNFPA], 2012). In Australia, persons over the age of 65 currently comprise about 14 per cent of the total population; by 2061, older adults will account for about 22 per cent of the total, rising to over 25 per cent by 2101 (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS], 2013). The longevity trend is most marked in deep old age. In 2012, only about two per cent of the Australian population was over age 85; this figure will more than double by 2061 (ABS, 2013). Complementing increased longevity is the assumption that older adults are fitter and wealthier than ever before (Commonwealth of Australia, 2012; Federal Interagency Forum on Age-Related Statistics, 2012), while Australia has traditionally compensated for threats to population productivity by relying on the in-migration of younger workers and their families (Kudrna & Woodland, Reference Kudrna and Woodland2011). As migration has become increasingly problematic in the Australian political sphere, greater attention has begun to be paid to population aging, both as a threat and as a solution to workforce needs.

Policy, Aging and Productivity

The Australian Government has been forthright in advocating a productivist approach to population aging. Australia is unusual in having the Australian Treasury provide regular “Intergenerational Reports” (IGR), the aim of which is to look ahead 40 years and identify particular threats to and opportunities for the nation. The reports (Commonwealth of Australia, 2002; 2007; 2010a; 2010b) acknowledge, over time, the link between population aging and future “intergenerational challenges”, primarily in terms of growing social and health care costs, reduced productivity, and increased dependency. Successive reports have identified a pressing need to contain costs, boost productivity, and adjust fiscal spending in anticipation of increased social spending and declining productivity. Increasing the workforce participation rates of older adults has gathered momentum with each report.

The first report (Commonwealth of Australia, 2002) focused principally on projected social and health care costs resulting from population aging, rather than on the need to boost workforce participation among mature workers, claiming that “a substantial increase in participation of older workers would not have a large impact on the overall participation rate and hence economic growth” (p. 26). In the 2007 report, however, there was an increased emphasis on workforce participation rates of older adults, and a growing focus on projected dependency ratios. Under the banner of the “3Ps” (population, participation, and productivity) demographic change, labour force participation and productive outputs were more firmly linked. By 2010, the evidential link between population aging and declining productivity was well-established:

Older adults’ workforce participation became central to the economic and political forecast, and thus a critical area for policy development. Reducing employment barriers for older workers was presented as the principal solution to raising workforce participation rates among the older demographic.

The 2010 report suggested a number of specific initiatives for policy development, and noted the establishment of the Consultative Forum on Mature Age Participation, as part of the government’s Productive Ageing Package. Following its release, the then Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workforce Relations (DEEWR) introduced the Experience Plus program to support mature-age (age 45 and older) workforce participation by offering retraining, re-skilling, and career advice services and rewarding employers for hiring older workers. Australia’s approach is not unlike measures being undertaken by other nations and international bodies, wherein work has become the principal means for older adults to make a social contribution (see Moulaert & Biggs, Reference Moulaert and Biggs2013; Phillipson, Reference Phillipson, Chiva and Manthorpe2009), with little consideration of other forms, such as family relations, or the effects of work on those relations.

Whereas Australia has an Age Discrimination Act responses to the problem of ageism have become focussed on workplace discrimination and barriers to work participation (Deloitte Access Economics and Australian Human Rights Commission, 2012), culminating in a review of all Commonwealth legislation to identify forms of age discrimination at work (Australian Law Reform Commission [ALRC], 2012). Ageism has been construed chiefly as a workplace access issue and not as a risk to personal identity and family life. By casting barriers to workforce participation as an issue of ageism, older adults, like their younger counterparts, are considered to draw similar benefits and values from work; thus also obscuring generational distinctiveness and changing calls on families across the life course. Linking ageism with production in such a way reinforces work as the principal means of belonging and citizenship. It discounts, however, personal priorities that are age-specific and priorities that may not hinge solely on work. As a result, work itself ceases to be situated within a wider frame of reference, such as family life, which while recognising work as an important part of life, would form a counterpoint to work as life’s principal purpose and as a legitimate road to social inclusion.

The Advisory Panel on the Economic Potential of Senior Australians (EPSA), established in 2012, suggested an alternative policy stance. The panel, over the course of three reports, cast population aging as less of a problem and more of an opportunity (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011a; 2011b; 2011c). The Advisory Panel also paid attention to ways of enhancing the trend for retirement transitions becoming delayed or blurred, interpreted as a “stretching” of life course categories. Governments, at Commonwealth (federal) and State levels, are actively encouraged to promote longer working lives, phased retirement, and a mix of work and voluntary activities. With “stretching”, the productive or working phase of life is likely to increase, but the promise of an active retirement is not depleted. This is conceived largely as an opportunity, and as an antidote to projected fiscal costs of the retirement years. As the Advisory Panel has stated:

Accordingly, “stretching” of the life course not only challenges the rigidity of the staged life course (Gullette, Reference Gullette, Cole, Kastenbaum and Ray2000) but also has significant implications for the relationship between the nature of working life itself (Seike, Biggs, & Sargent, Reference Seike, Biggs and Sargent2012) and other forms of contribution. However, whereas the EPSA Report, and the more detailed State of Victoria’s report mentioned below, attempted to construct a balance between economic and social factors, notably through increased social participation, family is rarely mentioned. The report of the Inquiry into Opportunities for Participation of Victorian Seniors (Family and Community Development Committee, 2012), in an otherwise positive appraisal of the active role of older citizens, only seriously considers family issues under three sections: informal care, social isolation, and elder abuse. It is as if advocates of the notion of active, independent elders had somehow forgotten that older adults are also positively engaged with their families. This is stranger still given that the inquiry was initiated by the state’s Family & Community Development Committee. In spite of such limitations, the EPSA panel and the Victorian report presented a positive focus on population aging.

However, EPSA’s messages have been relegated to the margins of policy debate as the political climate changed with the election of the coalition government in 2013. The Productivity Commission Report, An Ageing Australia: Preparing for the Future (2013), further advances the productivist approach. It takes up where the last IGR report left off and, with more detail on projected fiscal pressures and barriers to reform, adds more-coercive measures to the policy mix. It floated the idea of lifting the official retirement age (scheduled to increase from 65 to 67 in 2023) to 70, and health care reforms to increase a privatisation of responsibility and therefore risk, using older adults’ housing equity to fund aged care services. As the report has stated, “Policy measures that overcome the barriers that individuals and households face in accessing the equity in the home may play a future role in freeing up resources for greater contributions to age-related expenses such as health and aged care, without affecting older people’s other consumption” (Productivity Commission, 2013, p. 205).

Currently, assets are a factor in determining how much an individual contributes to the care services they receive, particularly permanent, residential care; accommodation bonds, usually provided through the sale of one’s home, are commonly used by individuals to secure a residential or nursing home place, but their asset value is protected. However, the report also suggests “broadening what is assessed as the wealth of an individual or couple, and thus their ability to contribute to the costs of the services they use” (Productivity Commission, 2013, p. 207). Government and market-based home equity release schemes are canvassed as options to increase co-contributions and fund care previously provided by the state. Such options echoed recommendations made in a previous inquiry (Productivity Commission, 2011), which were not supported by the government of the time because they were perceived as a threat to family inheritance. Currently, there is no inheritance tax in Australia, so the new arrangement would be seen as an attack on family assets. The 2013 report adds considerable weight to the view that personal and family wealth should be released to finance government-funded care. Indeed, the report goes a step further, linking the release of personal wealth and workforce participation, stating: “The greater use of equity withdrawal to partially fund government-subsidised age-related services may therefore have a twin economic effect by reducing the fiscal costs to government, while stimulating the labour force participation rates of potential estate beneficiaries” (Productivity Commission, 2013, p. 235). While this makes economic sense, there is no consideration for how such measures might impact on intergenerational transfers and relations; in an Australian context, such measures could have as-yet-unexplored implications for the norms associated with intergenerational relations, particularly transfers between generations.

Policy and Families

Government policy in Australia has for some time recognised the pressure that work has on young families. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) report, Investing in the Early Years – A National Early Childhood Development Strategy (2009), provides a framework that aims to ensure the best possible outcomes for children (particularly with regard to health and education), and ongoing support for parents’ workforce participation. Managing the work–life interface is considered a good characteristic of labour law and social policy (Work and Family Roundtable, 2007; 2010; 2013). Policies supporting maternity and parental leave, childcare subsidies, and family-friendly workplaces, particularly in terms of flexible working hours, have consistently been used to strike the right family-work balance. The focus to date has largely been on parents with young children, and primarily on values related to childhood development. As the COAG report (2009) stated, “Healthy and happy children are more likely to become healthy and resilient adults who have more equal capacity, opportunity and resources to contribute to a cohesive and prosperous society” (p. 6).

There is an economic imperative to family support, and a sense of investing in children as future workers (Lister, Reference Lister2003). Such an imperative has not traditionally applied to mature workers. However, as the economic value of increased workforce participation among older workers gains currency, policy positions are beginning to shift. Older adult workers, especially those with caring responsibilities, are beginning to enter the work–life policy fold. According to the Productivity Commission (2011) report Caring for Older Australians, in 2009 there were about 350,000 primary carers providing assistance to people over age 60; most of these carers lived in the same household, of which 69 per cent were a spouse or partner, and 24 per cent were a daughter or son. The Productivity Commission made particular note of the role of family carers and informal care arrangements: “Informal carers provide the majority of direct care to older Australians and often play a key role in the co-ordination of formal care services. Their role is not only fundamental to those they care for, but for the functioning of the aged care system overall” (Productivity Commission, 2011, p. 325).

There is increasing recognition of adult workers who provide care to older family members and/or their partners. Social and family policy has broadened by degrees to encompass the needs of older adults as workers with caring responsibilities. A recent amendment to the Australian Fair Work Act 2009 entitles older workers with caring responsibilities to request flexible working arrangements, where previously this was available only to workers with children of school age. The National Respite for Carers Program, administered by the now-renamed Commonwealth Department of Social Services, maintains a strong focus on working adults with caring responsibilities. Yet there is considerable lag between the priorities placed on continued work and policies to ameliorate the effects that continued workforce participation have on the family and intergenerational relations. The Australian Human Rights Commission (2013) has stated:

Liu and Easthope (Reference Liu and Easthope2012) revealed that, in addition, the current definition of dependency used for official reporting purposes in Australia, with wider implications for family tax exemptions and benefit payments, does not adequately account for adult-child and parental “dependencies or reciprocation”. Fine and Glendinning (Reference Fine and Glendinning2005) argued that social policy has not kept pace with the complex, multidirectional qualities of care and dependency that occurs in increasingly diverse family forms.

In addition to the role of informal care to older family members, policy has also identified the importance of grandparents. Grandparents are, second to the care provided to children by their parents, “the largest providers of informal care” (ABS, 2005, p. 44), with grandparenting often being the only valued social/familial role identified for older adults (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011a). There are a growing number of grandparents assuming the role of guardian, fully responsible for the care of their grandchildren; however, in many instances they are ineligible for care support payments and are at the mercy of legal contestation (ABS, 2005).

There are indications of a more integrated policy approach to care. In Australia, aspects of a complementary model linking family priorities, care, and workforce participation may be observed in the National Carers Recognition Framework, which incorporates the Commonwealth's Carer Recognition Act 2010 and a National Carer Strategy (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011d). Informed by a government inquiry into the support provided to carers (Australia Parliament, 2009), the framework further co-opts the family into the provision of care. It aims to provide direction to all levels of government and across different service agencies to better support carers. With the aim of better linking health and aged-care systems with family carers, the framework and strategy describes informal carers as “partners in care”. The National Carer Strategy also attempts to remedy tensions between work and family responsibilities. Under the strategy’s third policy priority area is a commitment to provide carers with “economic security and opportunities to participate in paid work” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011d, p. 23). From this principle, planning emerged (before a change of government in 2013) for a range of policy initiatives, such as job training, re-skilling, extending the carer supplement, and flexible work arrangements to support carers who work and those wanting to re-enter the workforce (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011d).

It would appear, then, that while family-based caring by older adults has been acknowledged in government reports, policy implementation continues to lag behind social and family dynamics. There are indications that accommodations to family life – and to some extent, shifting family roles in later life – are becoming part of Australian policy, but these are still very much determined by a meta-narrative that privileges work participation and child care.

Family, Work, and the Emergence of New Policy Risks

From the preceding analysis, it would appear that although Australian policy responses to population aging are dominated by productivity and care in the early years, there is some evidence that a cultural shift is taking place. The problem with this shift is that it threatens to both limit the role of families to that of direct care and incorporate it into unpaid and quasi-professional forms of work. Families are therefore included, but in a limited way that associates them with a dominant meta-narrative that prioritises productivism. It will be interesting to see how cultural shifts towards inclusion, or more critically, co-option, develop in the context of policy. European evidence suggests that family care works best when it complements the health and aged systems, rather than as a replacement for them (Wenger, Reference Wenger1984). This longstanding defense of the role of services is reinforced by Daatland and Herlofson (Reference Daatland, Herlofson, Lowenstein and Ogg2003) who stated:

Rather than supporting the assertion that services “crowd out” family care, the OASIS results (Lowenstein, Katz, Phillips, & Bazo, 2003) indicate that welfare services enable families to direct their solidarity into other aspects of a relationship that may benefit intergenerational understanding, not solely dominated by physical tending and work-like activities.

“New social risks” associated with population aging do indeed seem to constellate around the submersion of family within a more dominant narrative of social inclusion through work and work-like activity. Under such a narrative, risks to familial and intergenerational solidarity and wider well-being will need to be explored as the consequences unfold. These risks might include the following: (a) the dominant narrative of social policy towards later life continuing to privilege work participation, with the consequence that alternative forms of social contribution are either ignored or underplayed; (b) family policy remaining only tangentially connected to debate on the wider social participation of older adults; (c) a tendency to follow patterns laid down by other parts of the life course, most notably patterns by young families and children, rather than specific circumstances of late-life relationships; (d) a focus on care eclipsing wider debate on the value of intergenerational relationships in providing access to multiple sites of generational collaboration; (e) anti-discrimination policies that focus myopically on barriers to work participation, not looking at other forms of exclusion in terms of services, neighbourhood, and civic participation; and, finally, (f) a concentration on the risk posed by population aging, rather than on the risks that productivist policy poses to older people and their family lives.

Most of these new risks are high-level ones associated with the narratives that allow or suppress certain forms of social legitimacy. They also point more to an eclipsing of the complexities of family life, rather than a mismatch between two developed policy arenas. The role of older people in families appears as an underdeveloped newcomer to the policy table that can easily lead down paths shaped by other intentions, most notably the needs of young families and the need for work continuation. In terms of Connidis and McMullin’s (2002) point on emotional stress caused by changing structural conditions, it would appear that in the task of adaptation, understanding the complexity of late-life families has largely been evacuated and replaced by simplifying and somewhat “off the peg” solutions. As such, cultural adaptation of any significance is not yet taking place, as the policy responses constitute assimilation into existing forms, rather than accommodation to changing circumstances. “More of the same” has, in other words, delayed exploring the challenges presented by population aging and the historically novel emergence of generations of approximately the same size. Somewhat strangely, family relations in later life are conceived as being passive and bleached of social and civic participation, excepting where they facilitate work or work-supporting activity.

In terms of an alternative, policy narratives may be better adapted to the needs of families and older adults if they were to take greater account of the following areas. First, more attention ought to be given to the role of intergenerational relations within families and in society more generally. This should include critical review of the implications of policy change on generational solidarity, based on empirical evidence. Second, there needs to be recognition that the adult life course includes a number of embedded phases, each of which is accompanied by age-specific life tasks and existential questions particular to longevity. To draw on the specific contributions arising from the priorities of each group would create new combinations and adaptive innovation that does not simply import concepts from other parts of the life course. Third, attention should be paid to the role of families, not simply as passive elements to be drawn in to support work-related activities but as active agents shaping social relations across the life course and engaging in civil society.

More-complex theoretical models may be needed to understand the complex tensions emerging across work, home, and care (Pillemer & Suitor, Reference Pillemer and Suitor2008) and the nuances that define generational boundaries (Biggs & Lowenstein, Reference Biggs and Lowenstein2011). By concentrating so heavily on economic deficits, societies run the risk of negating other, often more significant, contributions made by older adults, and the complex web of intergenerational relations that mediate such possibilities. Families may also play a more subversive role, which target a very different form of risk to the dominant narratives outlined above. Family can, as Attias-Donfut and Wolff (2005) suggested, act as a source of alternatives to “official histories” and official versions of historical events. Family life may allow forms of interdependence and memory across a life course to be recognised, enhancing the “resistive potential of family narratives as a counterweight to dominant public discourses” (Biggs, Reference Biggs2007, p. 704). Families, then, may act as a reservoir of resistance to work as a metaphor for social legitimacy, not in the way that Bengtson and Putney (Reference Bengtson, Putney, Vincent, Phillipson and Downs2006) have implied, as a crutch supporting an otherwise denying policy regime, but as an alternate model of recognition and value. Family narratives concerning gender, the experience of migration, struggle, and opposition to the negative effects of work discipline, plus the often contingent and unsustained promises of the state may be held in family memory and form the springboard for alternative agendas in the present. Such a reordering would imply a radical reconsideration of work–life priorities and intergenerational engagement, tailored to the needs of a long life lived with others.