Australia, together with most other developed and developing countries, faces a difficult demographic pattern in the first half of the twenty‐first century, due to a low and declining birth rate and an ageing population. This has led to an ageing workforce, with a relative shortage of younger...

The recent interest in women returning to, or increasing their, labour market participation has largely ignored the skills and aspirations of women themselves. This article is based on a survey of mothers of young children in a fairly prosperous part of the South East of the UK. Research...

In the context of a gradually ageing labour force and skills shortages, discrimination against older workers has recently become an issue of public policy concern. Ageism is arguably more pervasive in the hospitality industry than elsewhere; a recent follow‐up study confirms that hospitality...

Increases in female employment in post‐war Britain are characterized by the concentration of women in low‐paid and low status occupations. Demographic change in the late 1980s and early 1990s could have improved the employment status of women, with employers devising “women friendly”...

Examines the attitudes of employers with regard to age discrimination and the use of media advertising to infer age preference without actually stating an age‐bar. Analyses how, through discrete advertising in selected newspapers and journals, some employers are still youth‐oriented and not...

This article uses the litigation in National Grid v. Laws to demonstrate two aspects of the law surrounding occupational pension schemes: the wide range of interpretations that are possible when construing pension scheme rules; and the enormous difficulties faced by scheme members when seeking...

The article compares the major features of pension provision in the UK and in France. It considers why the UK population appears to be at best indifferent to their system of provision, when overall it is financially secure, whereas the French system, which is faced with increasing costs,...

This article considers the issues raised by the proposed abolition of the mandatory retirement age as a result of the Equal Treatment Directive, 2000/78/EC, and of proposed Age Discrimination in Employment Regulations. It argues that there are a number of distinctive retirement ages, namely, the...

An integral part of government policy is to encourage employees to make financial provision for retirement. This paper asks why eligible employees, particularly women, do not join their company schemes. This two‐stage study uses face to face interviews followed by a survey of 532 employees who...