Extending Working Life:Behaviour Change Interventions

Abstract

Background and scopeWhile a positive feature of the post-war period, increasing longevity brings new challenges, not least with respect to provision for old age.In particular, it impacts on the ratio of working to non-working life.Beyond public policy concerns over the long-term fiscal sustainability of current retirement norms (State Pension age (SPA) and earlier), recent years have witnessed interest from some employers, conscious of skills shortages and attracted to flexible working arrangements, as well as calls from the older age organised interest groups for enhanced access to paid employment in later life.Despite recently announced incremental rises in the minimum age at which State Pension is claimable, it is apparent that a significant proportion of the working population continue to leave the labour market before their SPA, either through choice, diminished health status or as a consequence of employer policies.Moreover, working beyond SPA represents a minority activity.The economic and social implications surrounding the continuance of exiting custom and practice has resulted in the UK Government prioritising ways of encouraging individuals to remain in paid employment for longer.The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has strategy responsibility for all aspects of older worker employment.A core element of its remit relates to finding ways to stimulate higher rates of employment amongst individuals aged 50 and over.Key policy objectives in this area include:• influencing employer orientations, policies and practices pertaining to the employment of older workers;• enhancing opportunities for older individuals to return to paid employment;• encouraging employees to remain in paid employment for longer;• encouraging employees to make enhanced financial provision for retirement.The DWP has funded extensive research on the attitudes, knowledge and information preferences of older workers, as well as their broader orientations to extending working life (see Appendix B).Informed by insights from cognitive psychology, behavioural economics, social psychology and socio-cultural on motivating behaviour change we were asked to:• interpret and distil the amassed UK and international findings (over the period 2000-10); and• make recommendations regarding policy intervention options that will stimulate higher rates of employment amongst older people and enhance levels of retirement income following withdrawal from the labour.In particular, the DWP wished to enhance its insight into the array and relative importance of individual, social and cultural variables that influence retirement orientations and decision-making, referenced to contemporary insights on motivating behaviour change, in order to enhance its delivery of an evidence-based approach in the design of policies that encourage extending working life (EWL).• the primary point of resistance to EWL rests with individuals (potentially underplays structural, institutional and cultural effects);• cultural change arises from the sum of individual actions (underplays structural and institutional normative influences, e.g.workplace climate 3 ).The nudge (decision architecture) concept is quite distinct from established (health) psychology behaviour change approaches 4 .Rather than aiming to help individuals to become more rational in their decision-making, the nudge perspective focuses on ways of configuring options to take account of human irrationality, i.e. essentially, it advocates policy intervention that makes changes to the context in which individuals make decisions, rather than attempting to change how individuals feel about/react to contexts, e.g.automatic-enrolment 5 in pensions, rather than (routinely via communication media) stressing the pitfalls of failing to invest in a pension. Communicating with the publicTurning to public knowledge and understanding of EWL, it is apparent that there are widespread misunderstandings over even basic elements such as SPA.People also find the complexity of the tax and pension systems daunting, to the extent that few actively attempt to calculate the impact of alternative options on income in older age.It is unlikely that education initiatives aimed at enhancing financial literacy would significantly redress this.An approach which is more likely to be effective rests with building on people's, generally partial and impressionistic mental models 6 , e.g.'you need to save for retirement', 'pensions are a good idea', 'it's not worth working [post SPA] as I will lose it all [additional income] in tax', etc., reinforcing those that are substantively accurate and addressing gaps and misconceptions.We therefore recommend the mental models 7 approach 8 to communication as a tried and tested audience-focused framework for developing message content that meets the informational needs of target groups -for both EWL and pensions issues.There are synergies between the mental models and nudge approaches in so far as both aim to capitalise on extant public understanding and decision behaviour rather than attempting to educate people in the hope of making them more rational.Effective communication in this area requires a broader perspective than incorporating insights on enhancing comprehension and techniques for filling gaps in public knowledge.Rises in SPA, 3 Organisational climate -structural and institutional parameters; systems, practices and priorities that provide a defining influence on employee culture, and behaviour.4An array of theoretical (health) psychology models of behaviour that draw on rational actor assumptions (see footnote 5) that view change as the product of recognition of personal vulnerability and belief in the capacity to change.5Where the default arrangement is to co-opt individuals into a scheme, e.g. an employer pension.6 Heuristics -rules of thumb; mental shortcuts that amount to intuitive sense-making; the tendency to focus on a sub-set of what are believed to be key characteristics of an issue.Contrasts with detailed deliberative contemplation.7People's internal representation of elements in their world, often impressionistic and substantially incomplete (also see footnote 6). 8The mental models approach to communication -developed at Carnegie Mellon University by Baruch Fischhoff and Granger Morgan and colleagues (for a summary see Weyman A.K. and

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