The gender of 'active aging': from the principle of equal treatment to the multiplication of contradictory imperatives

This article analyses the impact of 'active aging' policies on gender (in)equality during the second half of working life. Through the inclusion of an intermediary level of analysis, it questions the potential hiatus between the gender norms that are promoted through public policies and those that underpin the action of human resource departments within large companies. On the basis of empirical fieldwork, it reveals the dissonance in 'doing gender' between different institutional settings, that induces multiple contradictory imperatives on aging female workers in Switzerland. Reprinted by permission of Seismo Press