Sustainable Healthy Working Life for All Ages—Work Environment, Age Management and Employability

The proportion of elderly citizens is continuously increasing in most of the industrial world [1,2,3]. The current demographic trend is characterised by increased longevity and lower fertility rates, resulting in an increasingly ageing population. The retirement age in many countries is being postponed adapting the economic and budgetary implications of increased longevity to the new demographic distribution. Older people are encouraged to continue working and to participate in the labour force for as long as possible [1,2,3]. The demographic situation stresses the importance of factors that motivate older employees and self-employed individuals to keep working and maintain their employability until an older age, as well as encouraging the organisations and enterprises to care for their employees’ employability until an age older than the current retirement age [4,5,6,7].

There are a lot of factors that influence risks and problems, as well as employability and a healthy and sustainable working life for all ages at the individual organisational/enterprise and society level. The complexity of these factors has been identified in research. To make this complexity more manageable and comprehensible, the SwAge model has been used to organize these complex factors contributing to a healthy and sustainable working life for all ages in nine different areas of impact and determination. There are nine determinant areas identified in the SwAge-model [4,5], which are: (1) self-rated health, diagnoses, functional diversity; (2) physical work environment; (3) mental work environment; (4) work schedule, work pace, time for recuperation; (5) personal finances, work ability, employability; (6) personal social environment and work–life balance; (7) work social environment, discrimination, leadership and age management; (8) motivation, stimulation and satisfaction with work tasks; (9) knowledge, skills, and competence (Figure 1). This Special Issue will contribute to the development of our theoretical and practical knowledge in the domains that influence people’s working life.