ProPublica's If You’re Over 50, Chances Are the Decision to Leave a Job Won’t be Yours covers a fascinating study looking at the job paths of workers aged 50 or older.
The study used data from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study. Since 1992, this study has followed a nationally representative sample of about 20,000 people from the time they turn 50 through the rest of their lives.
Researchers from the Urban Institute analyzed this data with a focus on workers who enter their 50s with stable, full-time jobs and who’ve been with the same employer for at least five years.
The study findings are not pretty.
As the article chart below (click to enlarge) shows, most of the study participants (56%) experienced at least one employer driven job loss after the age of 50, with many (18%) experiencing more than one.
In addition, most of those who lost jobs never fully recovered financially. Key quote on those who experienced involuntary job loss:
"Only one in 10 of these workers ever again earns as much as they did before their employment setbacks, our analysis showed. Even years afterward, the household incomes of over half of those who experience such work disruptions remain substantially below those of workers who don’t."
This is because many either don't find a new job or, if they do, it's a lower paying job. Again from the article:
... laid-off workers in their 50s and beyond are more apt than those in their 30s or 40s to be unemployed for long periods and land poorer subsequent jobs, the HRS data shows. “Older workers don’t lose their jobs any more frequently than younger ones,” said Princeton labor economist Henry Farber, “but when they do, they’re substantially less likely to be re-employed.”
The article points to age discrimination as the key reason this is happening - and it's hard to disagree. In our work we regularly talk to older job seekers who feel they've been discriminated against.
This is yet another reason why more older workers are choosing (or being forced into) independent work. See our Baby Boomer section for more on this.
We'll have more on this topic in the near future.
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