Prolonging the careers of older information technology workers: continuity, exit or retirement transitions?

The article explores the ways in which older workers' career trajectories influenced their exit from or continuity of employment in the Australian information technology (IT) industry. The data were collected through qualitative interviews with 71 employees of 10 small and medium-sized IT firms as part of the cross-country Workforce Ageing in the New Economy project (WANE), which was conducted in Canada, the United States, Australia and several European Union countries (the United Kingdom, Germany and The Netherlands). The analysis revealed that older IT workers' capacity to envisage careers beyond their fifties was constrained by age-based ‘normative’ capability assumptions that resulted in truncated careers, dissuaded the ambition to continue in work, and induced early retirement. The workers' constricted, age-bound perspectives on their careers were reinforced by the rapid pace of technological and company transformations. A structural incompatibility was found between the exceptional dynamism and competitiveness of the IT industry and the conventional age-staged and extended career. The analysis showed that several drivers of occupational career trajectories besides the well-researched health and financial factors predisposed ‘default transitions’ to exit and retirement. The paper concludes with policy and practice recommendations for the prolongation of IT workers' careers and their improved alignment with the contemporary lifecourse.