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Introduction
Older workers receive increasing attention because of population ageing. This demographic shift occurs around the globe, and Europe currently has the oldest population worldwide. Every fifth European was 65 or older in 2020, and by 2050, every fourth European is expected to belong to this age group (United Nations, 2019). This demographic shift reduces the size of the workforce and exerts financial pressure on pension schemes (Bonenkamp et al., 2017). Policymakers react to these changes by increasing the state pension age and reducing early retirement options. The aim is to keep individuals in the workforce until a later age (Phillipson, 2019).
Researchers have extensively studied the situation of older workers. They have explored what keeps them in the workforce and what makes them retire early. Examples of factors keeping them in the workforce are health, job satisfaction and lacking access to early retirement schemes (Komp, 2018; Visser et al., 2021). Examples of factors facilitating early retirement are health problems, family obligations and workplace changes (Mäcken, 2019; Niemi and Komp, 2018; Topa et al., 2018). Common current workplace changes are mass layoffs, digitalisation and restructuring to increase efficiency. These changes often go hand-in-hand with one another: digitalisation may restructure workplaces and increase efficiency, which reduces the number of workplaces and leads to layoffs (Harteis, 2018; Niemi and Komp, 2018).
Social inequalities exist in these factors, such as educational inequalities in the influence of health, gender inequalities in the influence of family obligations and employment status-related inequalities in the influence of workplace changes (Niemi and Komp, 2018; Topa et al., 2018; Visser et al., 2021). The inequalities between employment statuses lead to older employees, employers and self-employed individuals experiencing workplace changes in different ways. The changes are particularly relevant for older employees because these individuals have fewer options to influence the changes than employers and the self-employed do. As this study explores changing workplaces, it focuses on older employees.
Although previous research has extensively documented the situation of older employees, it has not yet explored their master narrative. A master narrative is a specific type of story that is interwoven with a society's culture, guiding people's behaviour (McLean and Syed, 2015). It distinctively captures the life situations of many people through...