Financial Difficulties and Gender as Moderators of How Workforce Involvement and Transitions Affect the Health of Older Europeans

A prominent demographic trend throughout the industrialized world is population aging. In response to concerns about labor force shortages, many European nations have enacted policies aimed at keeping older persons employed. Understanding how later life paid work is associated with health is thus important. Using an older sample from waves six and seven of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (N = 38,884), this study shows how a set of six workforce involvement/transitions patterns are associated with health. Also studied are whether these effects are moderated by financial difficulties. Later life paid work is found to be beneficial for health, and this benefit is accentuated by financial difficulties. The findings also reveal moderation by gender. Older women’s more fragmented employment histories cause stable paid work to be of less benefit for addressing their financial difficulties. Furthermore, older women are especially vulnerable to unemployment while undergoing financial troubles.