Forgotten workforce: older people and their right to decent work

This report is about older people in low- and middle-income countries and the work they do. It discusses the reasons why older people work, the types of work they do, and the challenges they face.

The report highlights how millions of older people are denied their right to decent work. In fact, key challenges faced by older workers across the world in their search for decent work includes insecure work, difficulty accessing capital and credit, and age discrimination and violation of rights to land. Furthermore, they suffer from poor limited access to healthcare, low incomes unpaid and unrecognised work, as well as exclusion from skills development and other programmes to support livelihoods.

The report calls upon governments across the world to implement the following key recommendations in order to address older workers’ needs:

• implement age discrimination legislation to protect older workers from discrimination and exploitation in both the formal and informal economy
• create flexible economic policies that include and utilise older workers’ skills and experience, and implement non-contributory pensions to ensure income security for all older men and women
• provide free healthcare to all older people by removing barriers such as user fees, and facilitate inclusive education and training programmes that are open to men and women throughout their life
• facilitate access to microfinance programmes, especially micro-credit schemes, allowing older women and men to have equal access to financial resources available to other age groups
• remove mandatory retirement legislation, making the age of retirement flexible and voluntary
• research and disaggregate data on older workers in the formal and informal economies, thereby recognising their contributions and needs