ABSTRACT
The introduction to this book seeks to help the reader understand some of the potential debates which outline the profound changes to the retirement age within the UK, and furthermore, the potential immense impact that any change in the age that workers retire might have upon employment practices, and the engagement of employees, in terms of the psychological contract and future expectations. There have been studies around age diversity focussing upon older workers, ageing workers and age discrimination and retirement planning historically. We recognise further that there is considerable material surrounding employee engagement but there remains a gap which attempts to consider whether, or how, the lengthening of the time spent at work towards more than a total of 50 years changes the aspirations, expectations or relationship with work for existing employees. As such, there remains a dearth of current empirical studies that seek to engage with any potential implications from the change of retirement age and the increase in working life span in the changing of perceptions of employees in the workplace around.
