Active Ageing through Social Partnership and Industrial Relations Expertise

ASPIRE is a project sponsored by the European Commission, investigates how employers, trade unions and other stakeholders approach the older workforce issues and embed HRM policies and practices on workplace active ageing. It was carried out through workshops with social partners, generating 140 hours of qualitative data. Effective negotiating strategies will be identified which can be shared and promoted through the use of educational and training resources and web-based tools. Policy implications for European Union and national governments and social partners will be developed and disseminated. It was conducted in the United Kingdom, Poland, Spain and Italy.

The aim of ASPIRE is to understand processes through which social partners develop, pilot and implement active ageing interventions (including collective agreements) and reorient away from a collusion toward early retirement. European social partners have developed programmes to support older workers delay retirement and ASPIRE’s aim is to understand how Industrial Relations (IR) systems can facilitate and/or inhibit such agreements.

ASPIRE research questions are:

1. How do different industrial relations (IR) structures facilitate and/or inhibit the dissemination and implementation of collective agreements on active ageing?
2. How are age and employment perceived in workplace contexts within different IR systems?
3. How do employers and trade unions respond to EU and national social activation policies in creating sustainable work opportunities for older workers?
4. How are the interests of older and younger workers negotiated and reconciled through workplace level mechanisms?
5. How are good practice and innovations in the dissemination of active ageing approaches shared between and within different national contexts and in Europe?

The project resulted in three sets of reports:

1. Desk research studies on employment regulations, pension rules and labour activation policies in the four countries
2. Reports of workshop discussions the four countries
3. An evidence report of the qualitative data from the workshops

In order to maximise the value of the project for employers, unions and other stakeholders, the project team has developed an online training module. The training module is aimed at managers and union representatives but is freely available to everyone.

The ASPIRE project is funded with the financial support of the European Commission, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, budget heading VP/2016/004 (Grant agreement VS/2016/0379), Industrial Relations and Social Dialogue.

To find the ASPIRE outputs, click the links below.