Skip to main content
Intended for healthcare professionals
Restricted access
Research article
First published online March 1, 2009

Identity work and the `unemployed' worker: age, disability and the lived experience of the older unemployed

Kathleen Riach and Wendy LorettoView all authors and affiliations
Volume 23, Issue 1
https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017008099780

Abstract

This article seeks to explore how older individuals negotiate and manage their self-identity in relation to work while situated without paid employment. After reviewing the current positions of the older unemployed in the UK, noting the substantial overlap between age and disability, we turn our attention to conceptualizing the lived experiences of individuals through exploring `identity work' as a means of understanding a non-working work identity. Based upon focus group interviews, our empirical analysis focuses on key dimensions of participants' identity practice and how they sought to manage the following social processes: imposed identities; crafting working identities; and contesting unfavourable working identities.The conclusion contextualizes the findings against a backdrop of increasing individualistic discourses underpinning approaches to employability, closes with the policy implications arising from this study, and makes suggestions for future research agendas.

Get full access to this article

View all access and purchase options for this article.

Get Access

References

Allen Collinson, J. (2006) `Just "Non-Academics"?: Research Administrators and Contested Occupational Identity', Work, Employment and Society 20(2): 267-88.
Google Scholar
Alvesson, M. and Willmott, H. (2002) `Identity Regulation as Organizational Control: Producing the Appropriate Individual', Journal of Management Studies 39(5): 619-44.
Google Scholar
Bacon, J. (2002) `Moving Between Sickness and Unemployment', Labour Market Trends (April): 195-205.
Google Scholar
Bain, A. (2005) `Constructing an Artistic Identity', Work, Employment and Society 19(1): 25-46.
Google Scholar
Barnes, C. (1991) Disabled People and Discrimination in Britain: A Case for Anti-Discrimination Legislation. London: Hurst/BCODP.
Google Scholar
Barnes, C. and Mercer, G. (2005) `Disability, Work, and Welfare: Challenging the Social Exclusion of Disabled People', Work, Employment and Society 19(3): 527-45.
Google Scholar
Barnes, H., Parry, J. and Lakey, J. (2002) Forging a New Future: The Experiences and Expectations of People Leaving Paid Work After 50. Bristol: The Policy Press in association with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation .
Google Scholar
Beatty, C. and Fothergill, S. (1999) Incapacity Benefit and Unemployment. Sheffield: CRESR.
Google Scholar
Beatty, C. and Fothergill, S. (2007) `Moving Older People into Jobs: Incapacity Benefit, Labour's Reforms and the Job Shortfall in the UK Regions', in W. Loretto et al. (eds) The Future for Older Workers: New Perspectives, pp. 65-87. Bristol: The Policy Press.
Google Scholar
Berthoud, R. (2003) Multiple Disadvantages in Employment: A Quantitative Analysis. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Google Scholar
Cassidy, T. (2001) `Self-Categorization, Coping and Psychological Health Among Unemployed Mid-Career Executives', Counselling Psychology Quarterly 14(4): 303-15.
Google Scholar
Creed, W. and Scully, M. (2000) `Songs of Ourselves: Employees' Deployment of Social Identity in Workplace Encounters', Journal of Management Inquiry 9(4): 391-412.
Google Scholar
Danson, M. (2007) `Older Workers in the Labour Market: The Demographic Context', in W. Loretto et al. (eds) The Future for Older Workers: New Perspectives, pp. 7-26. Bristol : The Policy Press.
Google Scholar
Dorfman, L.R. and Kolarik, D.C. (2005) `Leisure and the Retired Professor: Occupation Matters', Educational Gerontology 31(5): 343-61.
Google Scholar
DWP (2002) Pathways to Work: Helping People into Employment. London: HMSO.
Google Scholar
DWP (2004) Simplicity, Security and Choice: Informed Choices for Working and Saving. Cm 6111. London: HMSO.
Google Scholar
DWP (2006) Opportunity Age: Meeting the Challenges of a Changing Society. London: HMSO.
Google Scholar
DWP (2007) In Work and Better Off: Next steps to Employment. Green Paper Cm 7138, July.
Google Scholar
Gallie, D. and Marsh, C. (1998) `The Experience of Unemployment', in D. Gallie et al. (eds) Social Change and the Experience of Unemployment, pp. 1-31. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar
Garnsey, E. and Rees, B. (1996) `Discourse and Enactment: Gender Inequality in Text and Context', Human Relations 49(8): 1041-64.
Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity.
Google Scholar
Hatch, M.J. and Schultz, M. (2002) `The Dynamics of Organizational Identity', Human Relations 55(8): 989-1018.
Google Scholar
Havighurst, R. (1961) `Successful aging', Gerontologist 1(1): 8-13.
Google Scholar
Jobcentre Plus (2007) `Job Seekers Allowance: What Is It?', URL (consulted 6 September 2007): http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/JCP/Customers/WorkingAgeBenefits/Jobseekerallowance/index.html
Google Scholar
Kelvin, P. (1981) `Work as a Source of Identity: The Implications of Unemployment', British Journal of Guidance and Counselling 9(1): 2-11.
Google Scholar
Kitzinger, J. and Barbour, R. (1999) Developing Focus Group Research: Politics, Theory and Practice. London: Sage.
Google Scholar
Letkemann, P. (2002) `Unemployed Professionals, Stigma Management and Derivative Stigmata', Work, Employment and Society 16(3): 511-22.
Google Scholar
Lindsay, C., McQuaid, R.W. and Dutton, M. (2007) `New Approaches to Employability in the UK: Combining "Human Capital Development" and "Work First" Strategies?', Journal of Social Policy 26(4): 539-60.
Google Scholar
Llewellyn, A. and Hogan, K. (2000) `The Use and Abuse of Models of Disability', Disability and Society 15(1): 157-65.
Google Scholar
Loretto, W. and Taylor, M. (2007) Characteristics of Adults in Scotland with Long-term Health Conditions. Scottish Government Social Research Findings 59. Edinburgh: The Scottish Government.
Google Scholar
Loretto, W. and White, P. (2004) An Investigation of Older Workers and the Scottish Labour Market. Glasgow: Scottish Enterprise.
Google Scholar
McQuaid, R. and Lindsay, C. (2005) `The Concept of Employability', Urban Studies 42(2): 197-219.
Google Scholar
Maltby, T. (2007) `The Employability of Older Workers: What Works?', in W. Loretto et al. (eds) The Future for Older Workers: New Perspectives, pp. 161-83. Bristol : The Policy Press.
Google Scholar
Oecd (2006) Ageing and Employment Policies: "Live Longer, Work Longer". Paris: OECD Publications.
Google Scholar
Oliver, M. (1990) The Politics of Disablement. London: Macmillan.
Google Scholar
OPSI [Office of Public Sector Information] ( 2005) The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 (Commencement No. 2) Order, URL (consulted 21 August, 2007): http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2005/20052774.htm
Google Scholar
OPSI [Office of Public Sector Information] ( 2006) The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006, URL (consulted 17 February 2007): http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2006/20061031.htm
Google Scholar
Parker, M. (2000) Organizational Culture and Identity: Unity and Division at Work. London: Sage.
Google Scholar
Performance and Innovation Unit (2000) Winning the Generation Game. London: The Stationery Office.
Google Scholar
Riach, K. (2007) `"Othering" Older Worker Identity in Recruitment', Human Relations 60(11): 1701-26.
Google Scholar
Roberts, I. (2006) `Taking Age out of the Workplace: Putting Older Workers back in', Work, Employment and Society 20(1): 67-86.
Google Scholar
Sargeant, M. (2005) `Disability and Age-Multiple Potential for Discrimination', International Journal of the Sociology of Law 33(1): 17-33.
Google Scholar
Sveningsson, S. and Alvesson, M. (2003) `Managing Managerial Identities: Organizational Fragmentation, Discourse and Identity Struggle', Human Relations 56(10):1-31.
Google Scholar
Taylor, R.F. (2004) `Extending Conceptual Boundaries: Work, Voluntary Work and Employment', Work, Employment and Society 18(1): 29-49.
Google Scholar
Thomas, R. and Davies, A. (2005) `Theorizing the Micro-politics of Resistance: New Public Management and Managerial Identities in the UK Public Services', Organization Studies 26(5): 683-706.
Google Scholar
Willott, S. and Griffin, C. (2004) `Redundant Men: Constraints on Identity Change', Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 14(2): 53-69.
Google Scholar
Zaidi, A. and Fuchs, M. (2006) Policy Briefs: Transition from Work to Retirement in EU25. Briefs. Vienna: European Centre.
Google Scholar

Cite article

Cite article

Cite article

OR

Download to reference manager

If you have citation software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice

Share options

Share

Share this article

Share with email
EMAIL ARTICLE LINK
Share on social media

Share access to this article

Sharing links are not relevant where the article is open access and not available if you do not have a subscription.

For more information view the Sage Journals article sharing page.

Information, rights and permissions

Information

Published In

Volume 23, Issue 1
Pages: 102 - 119
Article first published online: March 1, 2009
Issue published: March 2009

Keywords

  1. age
  2. disability
  3. identity work
  4. older worker
  5. unemployment

Rights and permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Authors

Affiliations

Kathleen Riach
University of Essex, [email protected]
View all articles by this author
Wendy Loretto
University of Edinburgh, [email protected]
View all articles by this author

Metrics and citations

Metrics

Journals metrics

This article was published in Work, Employment and Society.

VIEW ALL JOURNAL METRICS

Article usage*

Total views and downloads: 1217

*Article usage tracking started in December 2016

Altmetric

See the impact this article is making through the number of times it’s been read, and the Altmetric Score.
Learn more about the Altmetric Scores


Articles citing this one

Receive email alerts when this article is cited

Web of Science: 105 view articles Opens in new tab

Crossref: 105

  1. Medicalisation of Unemployment: An Analysis of Sick Leave for the Unem...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  2. Let’s dream big! Affecting future female workers through governmental ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  3. Age, Gender, and Precarity
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  4. “Am i disabled?”: disability and identity management among middle-clas...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  5. When health is wealth: occupationally differentiated patterns of healt...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  6. Diversity and inclusion in UK Higher Education: staff perspectives on ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  7. Navigating Choppy Water: Flexibility Ripple Effects in the COVID-19 Pa...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  8. Doing “gendered exit”: Work, care and the moral practices of disabled ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  9. Talent orchestration and boomerang talent: seasonally employed chefs’ ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  10. Turning age into agency: A qualitative longitudinal investigation into...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  11. Still waters run deep: The invisible life of working mothers with disa...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  12. Trayectoria laboral e identidad laboral en profesionales chilenos en c...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  13. The Productivity of Unemployment and the Temporality of Employment-to-...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  14. Balancing attendance and disclosure: identity work of students with in...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  15. Newly Arrived Migrant Teachers and the Challenges of Reentering Work: ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  16. Neurodiversity in the Anglophone Caribbean
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  17. Analysis of the employment status of Iranian public universities gradu...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  18. Salvaging adulthood at youth work: Dignity, social disrespect, and the...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  19. Understanding Persons With Disabilities’ Reasons for Not Seeking Emplo...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  20. Trends and opportunities in research on disability and work: An interd...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  21. Human Resource Management Challenge to Innovate to Support Employees W...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  22. Disability of non-academic employees in public universities: an explor...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  23. Divide and Conquer: Social Assistance Clients’ Competing Frames of Soc...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  24. Why work? Disability, family care and employment
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  25. Newly Arrived Migrant Teachers and the Challenges of Reentering Work: ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  26. Migrant Construction Workers’ Agency in Times of Economic Recession
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  27. Subtle workplace discrimination inhibiting workers with intellectual d...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  28. Migrant teachers and the negotiation of a (new) teaching identity
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  29. Producing precarity: The individualization of later life unemployment ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  30. Reflexive Self-Identity and Work: Working Women, Biographical Disrupti...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  31. Managing menopause at work: The contradictory nature of identity talk
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  32. Precarity and Aging: A Scoping Review
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  33. Entrepreneuring after 50: the liminal identity transitions of older em...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  34. Feeling the benefit? Fluctuating illness and the world of welfare
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  35. Centering the Complexity of Long-Term Unemployment: Lessons Learned fr...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  36. An Ageless Gift: Reciprocity and Value Creation By and For Older Worke...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  37. Identity as career capital: enhancing employability in the creative in...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  38. Perceived reasons for pursuing vocational education and training among...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  39. Injustice, Uselessness, and Illness: A Qualitative Study of Unemployed...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  40. Population Aging, Age Discrimination, and Age Discrimination Protectio...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  41. Career Management: The Transition Process for Workers with Disability
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  42. When a Calling Goes Unanswered: Exploring the Role of Workplace Person...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  43. Getting what you deserve: How notions of deservingness feature in the ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  44. “I have to go the extra mile”. How fat female employees manage their s...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  45. Deconstructing the ‘older worker’: Exploring the complexities of subje...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  46. Photo elicitation in management history
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  47. Age, health and other factors associated with return to work for those...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  48. Identity work in organizations and occupations: Definitions, theories,...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  49. Work–retirement cultures: a further piece of the puzzle to explain dif...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  50. Job Loss in a Group of Older Canadian Workers: Challenges in the Susta...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  51. Abuse Faced by Child Labourers: Novel Territory in Workplace Bullying
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  52. More Than a ‘Little Act of Kindness’? Towards a Typology of Volunteeri...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  53. Dark Secrets and Impression Management: Workplace Masks of People with...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  54. Les chômeurs âgés face au « vieillissement actif ». Une comparaison Fr...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  55. Crisis económica, salud y bienestar en trabajadores con discapacidad
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  56. Individual‐level Foci of Identification at Work: A Systematic Review o...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  57. Forgone, but not Forgotten: Toward a Theory of Forgone Professional Id...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  58. Recruitment and Selection of Older Workers
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  59. Disability and ‘care’: managers, employees and colleagues with impairm...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  60. Activation and Active Ageing? Mature-Age Jobseekers' Experience of Emp...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  61. Some Useful Sources
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  62. Self-definition threats and potential for growth among mature-aged job...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  63. “Activated, but Stuck”: Applying a Critical Occupational Lens to Exami...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  64. Recent public policy and Australian older workers
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  65. Saisir les aspirations à la retraite de chômeurs en fin de carrière
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  66. What’s in a name? Categorising ‘disadvantaged older workers’
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  67. The Social Construction of Retirement and Evolving Policy Discourse of...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  68. Opportunities or barriers? the experiences of disadvantaged older jobs...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  69. Protocol for a mixed-methods longitudinal study to identify factors in...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  70. The productive and disruptive methodology of doing fieldwork at work
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  71. Work or welfare after cancer? Explorations of identity and stigma
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  72. The ideal worker as real abstraction: labour conflict and subjectivity...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  73. 'Success Is Satisfaction with What You Have'? Biographical Work–Life B...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  74. Making sense of self-employment in late career: understanding the iden...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  75. ‘He probably thought we were students’: Age norms and the exercise of ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  76. Recruitment and Selection of Older Workers
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  77. Becoming incapacitated? Long‐term sickness benefit recipients and the ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  78. Gendered Ageism and Organizational Routines at Work: The Case of Day-P...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  79. Negotiating the Self Between Past and Present: Narratives of Older Wom...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  80. L’expérience du chômage chez les travailleurs seniors : de la crise id...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  81. Barriers to employment for visually impaired women
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  82. Learning not to labour: a micro analysis of consensual male unemployme...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  83. Returning to STEM: gendered factors affecting employability for mature...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  84. Understanding changing disability-related employment gaps in Britain 1...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  85. The Last Stitch in the Quilt
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  86. Identity and stammering: negotiating hesitation, side‐stepping repetit...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  87. “The final piece of the puzzle to fit in” : an interpret...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  88. Labour Market Exit and Social Stratification in Western Europe: The Ef...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  89. The ill-treatment of employees with disabilities in British workplaces
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  90. Ältere Arbeitslose am Scheideweg zwischen Erwerbsleben und Ruhestand: ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  91. Job loss and its aftermath among managers and professionals: wounded, ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  92. The Rewards of Individual Engagement in Volunteering: A Missing Dimens...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  93. Work, narrative identity and social affiliation
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  94. Too old to work, or too young to retire? The pervasiveness of age norm...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  95. Reaping the benefits of sickness? Long-term illness and the experience...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  96. Disability as Constructed Difference: A Literature Review and Research...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  97. Ageing, skills and participation in work-related training in Britain: ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  98. Working past 65 in the UK and the USA: segregation into ‘Lopaq’ occupa...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  99. Metaphors for retirement: Unshackled from schedules
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  100. ‘Gaming is my work’: identity work in internet-hobbyist game workers
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  101. Instable career paths among workers 45 and over: Insight gained from l...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  102. The limitations of activation policies: unemployment at the end of wor...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  103. Work and retirement in an ageing world: the case of older workers in t...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  104. The Workless Class? Economic Transformation, Informal Work and Male Wo...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  105. Review article: Enhancing employability: Human, cultural, and social c...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar

Figures and tables

Figures & Media

Tables

View Options

Get access

Access options

If you have access to journal content via a personal subscription, university, library, employer or society, select from the options below:

BSA members can access this journal content using society membership credentials.

MEMBERSHIP LOGIN

BSA members can access this journal content using society membership credentials.

MEMBERSHIP LOGIN

Alternatively, view purchase options below:

Purchase 24 hour online access to view and download content.

Subscribe to this journal

Access journal content via a DeepDyve subscription or find out more about this option.

Start 2 week free trial
Need help?

View options

PDF/ePub

View PDF/ePub
Download PDF

Also from Sage