THE IMPACT OF ABOLITION OF DEFAULT RETIREMENT AGE ON ORGANISATIONS IN THE UK

FULL NAME:Tawanda chikosi

STUDENT NUMBER:2999847

COVENTRY UNIVERSITY

Dissertation Submission For the award of

(Business and Human Resources )

Date: March 2013

Abstract

Acknowledgements

Table of Contents
Abstract 2
Acknowledgements 3
Chapter 1: Introduction 6
1.1. Background 6
1.2. Aim of Research 6
1.3. Research Questions 7
1.4. Dissertation Outline 7
Chapter 2: Literature Review 8
2.1. Introduction 8
2.1.1 Age 8
2.1.2 Ageism 9
2.1.3 Equality 9
2.1.4 Retirement Age 10
2.1.5 Pension 10
2.1.6 Age Discrimination 11
2.2. Retirement Age Theories 11
2.2.1 The life-span theory 11
2.2.2 The Social Meaning of Aging 12
2.2.3 The Continuity Theory 12
2.2.4 Disengagement Theory 12
2.2.5 Structured Dependency Theory 12
2.2.6 Career Development Theory 13
2.3. Retirement age legislation in the UK 13
2.4 The Impact of Abolition of Default Retirement Age (DRA) on Organisations 14
2.4.1 Advantages to the Abolition of Default Retirement Age 15 a. Age Discrimination 15

b. Retention of Knowledge, Skills and Experience 15

2.4.2 Disadvantages to the Abolition of Default Retirement Age 15 a. Workforce and Succession Planning 15

b. Cost implications 15

c. Performance concerns 16

Chapter 3: Research Methods 17
3.1 Introduction 17
3.2 Research Design 17
3.3 Research Approach 17
3.4 Case Study 18
3.5 Document and Website Analysis 18
3.6 Limitations of the Research 19
Chapter 4: Results 19
Chapter 5: Conclusions 20
References 21

Chapter 1: Introduction

1 Background

2 Research Questions

It is the primary objective of this research to study the recent changes to the retirement age legislation in UK, determine how these changes compare to retirement age legislation in other countries especially in the developed world, determine how the retirement age legalisation changes impacts on employees in the UK and to gain an in-depth understanding of the issue in order to be able to draw relevant conclusions and provide guidance and recommendations for employers and employees in terms of the impact of the abolition of the retirement age. In other to achieve the objectives of this research, the following research questions have been formulated. In order to achieve the objectives of this research, the following research questions have been formulated.

1. What has been the historical background of retirement age legislations in the UK?

2. What are the recent changes in the retirement age legislation in UK and how does it affect organisations?

3. What recommendations that can be given to employers (organisations) in the UK so that they can better manage the impact of recent legislation on retirement age on their employees?

3 Dissertation Outline

The rest of this dissertation is organized as follows. Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive review of the relevant literature and in Chapter 3 the research methods used in this research are presented. The findings of this research are analyzed in Chapter 4 and the conclusions and recommendations are presented in Chapter 5.

The purposes of the research reported here were: first, to explore the benefits and challenges offered to organisations as their workers age; secondly, to analyse the inter-age dynamics at the workplace; and thirdly, to develop policy and practice recommendations for government, employers and other stakeholder groups.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

1.

2.

1 Introduction

The term old age does not only refer to individuals but society’s culture and the organizations. One way or the other, young people become old as they grow as well as new things become old. According to Ghosheh (2008), countries around the globe are facing growth in older age groups of their