Research

Summary page

Research

The mature-aged and skill development activities: A systematic review of research

This study set out to find evidence on whether participation in education and training improves older people’s productivity and keeps them in paid employment for longer. We were interested in this topic because one of the implications of Australia’s ageing population is a predicted skills shortage. Older workers remaining longer in the paid workforce and their participation in further education and training have often been cited as the main answer to overcoming the predicted skills shortage. While we know that many older Australians (45 years and over) are up-skilling or retraining in order to maintain gainful employment or pursue other interests, what we do not know is the extent to which education and training makes a difference in reversing the trend of early retirement and improving older worker participation in the labour market.

A systematic review of existing research was the chosen approach. For the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), it was the first systematic review conducted in a vocational education and training (VET) context in Australia. How we did it, and what we learnt from the process is the subject of an associated report (Anlezark, Dawe & Hayman 2005). This report presents the evidence found to answer the review question.

The agreed review question was:

What evidence is there that skill development activities for the mature-aged (45 years and over) lead to:

improved attachment to the labour market?

improved productivity?

Implied in the review question were the issues of:

factors that have an important bearing on these key outcomes, either as barriers or facilitators
implications of this review for VET policy, practice and research.

All aspects of these questions were detailed in the framework developed as part of the review process (see appendix B) and, with a starting point of over 2000 references to studies, in-depth reviews were conducted on 33 studies considered to be highly relevant to our review questions. Of the 33 reviewed studies, 11 were found to be of sufficient relevance and quality to provide answers to the review question and related issues: seven studies provided evidence for improved productivity or labour market attachment, and seven for barriers or facilitators (three studies were used for both).

Improved productivity and attachment to the labour market

From the seven studies in whose findings we can have confidence, three key points emerge:

There is evidence that education and training undertaken by older people can result in individual gains (employment or higher wages); the greater gains are for those who were previously unemployed, and for women more so than for men (the latter result possibly being because men have higher labour force participation rates to begin with).

There is evidence that labour-market-related gains are greater for the mature-aged who complete higher-level qualifications. Gaining lower-level qualifications or incomplete qualifications may have a negative effect on labour-market-related gains for some older people who undertake skill development activities.

The specifics of which skill development activities work, when, and for which groups of mature-aged are sparse in the review report, as the included studies mostly focused on the level of ‘qualification’ acquired, or simply referred to ‘training’ as the skill development activity.

The factors that act as barriers or facilitators

Three main factors affecting whether or not the mature-aged undertake skill development activities and achieve positive labour market outcomes were identified. These were:

attitudes and behaviours of employers and employees towards older people working and to learning new skills and knowledge
individuals’ circumstances (for example, health, carer responsibility, financial and socioeconomic status, access and opportunity to train) and attitude to learning
public policy outside vocational education and training, especially in relation to eligibility for age pension or superannuation funds, as this links to the time that individuals have to realise their investment in training.

Implications for VET policy, practice and research

The review indicates that policy-makers in VET should continue to encourage skills development for the mature-aged as a means of improving their productivity and longevity in the labour market. However, they need to be mindful that skill development activities alone are not likely to be sufficient.

There needs to be a package of measures to remove the barriers that many older workers face to training and to their subsequent attachment to the labour market, including:

changing attitudes and behaviours in our whole community to older workers

addressing disincentives to continuing on in employment, such as some aspects of current superannuation and retirement income policies

tailoring skill development activities for the mature-aged to suit their circumstances.

The review has also uncovered a need for more research to enable a better understanding of the particulars of which skill development activities work for which particular groups of mature-aged people, and under what circumstances.

Even before this report was completed, additional new reports were found and other research commenced. Therefore it is proposed to update this first systematic review over the following 12 months.