Understanding the Perspectives and Experiences of Employed Older People on Active Ageing in Their Later Working Life (Biographical Narrative Approach)

• Main Authors: Yong-Lim You, Hyun-Suk Lee
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-06-01
• Series: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
• Subjects: active ageing; older people; economic activity of older people; biographical narrative research
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/6916

This thesis aims to understand the perspectives and experiences of older people regarding the concept of active ageing in their later working life with biographical narratives. This research adopted a biographical narrative interview for data collection. A total of 15 employed older people were interviewed by the researcher. The collected data were analysed using the biographical narrative analysis of Schütze (1983). The research findings are the following: in the first theme, the driving force to enable older people to choose active ageing in the workplace was their confidence in their work ability to include a challenging attitude at work. In the second theme, another driving force to enable older people to participate in economic activity that was considered was the individual workability of active older workers, including health rather than their chronological ageing in the labour market. However, in the third theme, research participants believed that the barrier of active ageing is a negative social prejudice on the working ability of older people. From this point of view, the research participants suggested that negative social prejudice for older workers should be overcome by active ageing experiences in age-friendly working environments as the fourth theme.