European Policy Analysis Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2016 | Page 76

Policy and Decision to Retire in Central and Eastern European Countries

and Holzman-Gazit (2016) and (b) were
lagged in time with the important labor
market changes (if apply the concept of
Kang (2014)). As Kotrusová and Výborná
(2011) indicated, despite the high level of
flexibility in the implementation of active
employment policies at the local level, a
large part of general public and enterprises
limited their expectations from them.

The contradiction in different
institutional characteristics of employment
policies for older people can be partly
explained by the absence of fragmented
employment strategies toward aging
population in selected countries during the
analyzed period. For example, in Estonia,
the Employment Contracts Act allowed
the employer terminating the employment
relationship on the basis of the persons’ age
till 2006. In 2007, the Articles of the Public
Service Act legally permitting the dismissal
of public sector employees aged over 65
years on the basis of their age was declared
invalid by the Estonian Supreme Court
(Feifs et al. 2013). Most of the analyzed
Central and Eastern European countries
introduced active aging strategies much
later than many of the “old-European”
countries. Older people as a separate
target group of national social policy were
not distinguished in the official strategic
documents of the analyzed countries till
2008 or even later.

The content of the strategic
documents can also vary from declarative
to program-like documents. Polish
national strategic document (Solidarity
between the Generations: Actions for
Increasing Occupational Activity of
People Aged 50+ (2008–2020)) is aimed
at improving the working conditions,
promoting employment of people over
50 and developing of age management
strategies. According to Feifs et al. (2013)

the implementation of the strategy has
already shown practical results in the
fields of vocational training, counseling,
entrepreneurship
and
information
measures. Subsidies to the civil society
organizations defending the needs of
senior citizens were introduced in the
Czech Republic (The National Program of
Preparation for Ageing for 2008–2012).

The national strategic documents
from the other countries usually focused
on broad societal groups and envisage
general employment and well-being aims.
For example, in Hungary, the National
Reform Program (2012) aimed at
increasing the activity rate and improving
the health status of the active population.
In Estonia, strategic documents aim to
support active aging through a variety of
measures including lifelong learning and
health promotion, and in Bulgaria, to
create conditions for active and dignified
life by promoting equal opportunities.

Working conditions. The new EU
member states usually show poor working
conditions, low job quality indicators,
and low wage levels (Erhel and GuergoatLarivière 2011). The development of job
quality in 1995–2010 in Eastern European
countries characterized by the low job
discretion, cognitive demand, workload,
and working time quality, as well as high
work risks (European Foundation for
the Improvement of Living and Working
Conditions 2015). The job discretion
characteristics are closely related with
the possibility of managing family and
work responsibilities as “the care for the
elderly was mostly done by the family
and state care would only intervene if
the family could not afford it or if there
was no family (European Foundation for
the Improvement of Living and Working
Conditions 2015a).”
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