New insight regarding the ageing workforce : It is time to close this knowing-doing gap

Abstract

The Western world faces an ageing of the population due to large cohorts born after the Second World War. Their life expectancies are increasing, their health is better as compared to previous generations, and smaller cohorts were born from the late 1960s and onwards (Bloom & Sousa-Poza, 2016). While these unpreceded demographic changes will impact all societal sectors in various ways, the discussion in this chapter is limited to some inevitable consequences for businesses, employers, and employees: to the access to and the composition of the future workforce (Bal, Kooij, & Rousseau, 2015; Taylor et al., 2016).