Purpose: With the demographic change in several countries, especially in Germany, societies and labour markets have to tackle new challenges. Particularly the combination of an aging in the employment age (15 till 64 years) and a shrinking population will lead to a future shortfall of workers. With the growth of the group of elderly workers, their sustainability within the workforce will become more important in future.
Methodology/Approach: Within our paper the employment rate of older workers and the motivation of these workers will be analysed. Related works discuss factors that influence the decision to prolong the working age and can be seen as starting point for empirical investigations. Our analysis itself is done for the German labour market and is based on two empirical data sets – one from 2008 (with 1,500 employees aged between 55 and 64) and another one from 2012
(with 318 employees aged between 23 and 66). With the use of these two independent data sets of the same country, detailed results for one specific labour market can be derived.
Originality/Value of Paper: These results are on the one hand the identification of general issues related to expectation, motivation, leadership and willingness to prolong working life and on the other hand first insights regarding a transformation process of these issues over time. The value of the paper comes from the large number of respondents, the high relevance of the German situation for other developed countries and the repeated measurement. At the end, some recommendations for human resources management in companies to identify, to involve and to motivate elderly workers for longer periods of employment can be given.