SS37-02 DECENT WORK AND AGING WORKERS

Determinants of decent work are factors that can positively or negatively influence health and wellbeing. They include sociodemographic changes, such as the aging of the workforce (Schulte et al. 2022). The aging workforce will require workers to have a longer working life, and employers will need to rely on an increasingly older workforce (ILO, 2019). This situation poses challenges for occupational health and safety, including actions that promote and maintain work ability and employability and delay retirement (Fischer et al. 2021). The pillars that support decent work are: job creation, social protection, rights of workers, social dialogue. Specific actions should be aiming at retaining older workers, ensuring the quality of work through reskilling and upskilling, providing health insurance, and preventing hazardous 3-D jobs (Schulte et al. 2022). Improvements at workplaces and environments should be considered, taking into account psychological and physiological changes associated with age. Practitioners, researchers, policy makers, governments and advocates are to promote sustainable working conditions for older workers. Actions should include but are not limited to: regular health monitoring programs, systematic and ongoing training with age-appropriate strategies, promotion of personal development / employability, improvements in work organization, appropriate working hours, leisure time, as well as reintegration after periods of illness, work injury, temporary functional disability, or unemployment – these are all crucial. Negative effects of functional decline can be compensated for by strategies based on experience, knowledge, and skills acquired throughout life. Acknowledgments: CNPq-productivity grant to FMF 306963/2021-3