DAISIE - European Union Extended Working Life Policies: On Pension Systems, Public Finances and Biopolitical Disciplining

This report explores the rhetoric surrounding extended working life (EWL) in three central documents from the European Commission. It sheds light on the underlying problems that raising the retirement age is assumed to solve, the rhetoric and arguments used in favour of EWL policies, as well as the assumptions about the capacity of women and men to continue working in older age. The analysis is based on an understanding of policies as active constructors of problems. Accordingly, the problems that the policy addresses are not seen as objective entities; rather, they are understood as discursively formed by the policies. The results show both similarities and differences between the documents analysed. Behind explicit reference to the need to increase retirement age in order to secure the pension systems, there are assumptions implying that it would also strengthen public finances and that this could take place by ‘disciplining’ older women and men into working longer and increasing their private savings. In arguments on economic vulnerability among older people, extended working life is also portrayed as necessary for older people to receive adequate pensions. Further, the analysis identifies contradictory perspectives on pension gender gaps. On the one hand, this gap is described as a result of the difference in retirement age between women and men, and on the other, as a consequence of events that took place during their prior working life. Finally, the analysis identifies dichotomous divisions between working life as productive time and retirement as unproductive time. This rhetoric, the report argues, serves to veil women and men’s different opportunities to combine family and work.