The Characteristics and Work Reasons of Older Workers in Relation to Employment Pathways: Focusing on Self-seeking

Abstract

The revised Elderly Employment Stabilization Law, which came into effect in 2021, provides an alternative to continued employment at the company one worked before retirement. This paper focused on the "self-seeking" group, who found the job without relying on the networks or mediation of their former company, and compared their socioeconomic characteristics and work reasons with those of the continuously employed group.

Our analyses show that the self-seeking group has longer educational year and older than the continuously employed group. In terms of work reasons, the self-seeking group tended to choose "time affordance”. These results suggest that not only firm size and occupation but also the socioeconomic characteristics and work reasons explain the difference between self-seeking group and continuously employed group.