Retirement Through Redundancy SUMMARY of SECTIONS ESRC
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UK Data Archive Study Number 7056 - RetirementESRC Through Research Redundancy, Project 1984-1985 G00232031 Retirement through redundancy A preliminary report Bill Bytheway February 1984 SUMMARY OF SECTIONS 1 Introduction. This section explains that the objectives of this report are primarily orientated towards the fieldwork to be undertaken in mid-1984. It relates this study to the broader study of redundancy in the steel industry of Port Talbot currently being funded by the ESRC. 2 Sampling. This describes the identification of the sample of 92 workers who were aged over 55 years when made redundant in 1980 from Bse Port Talbot. 3 Background. Seventeen were born outside Wales. All 92 were born between 1916 and 1925. Twelve are now past statutory retirement age. Some indication is given of how their working lives have corresponded to the history of the Abbey works in Port Talbot. Seventy were works employees. Half rent, half own their homes. Most have not moved for over 20 years. Most received over £5,000 in redundancy payments, averaging £10,000. None felt that their standard of living had increased substantially. About half reported that it had fallen. There has been a decline since redundancy in family income. 4 Job histories: pre-1980. The majority had worked at BSC Port Talbot for 20 to 34 years. Ten had started before the War. Only one had experienced long-term unemployment. Several had worked in other local industries: e.g. mining and quarrying. 5 Job histories: post-1980. Since redundancy, 17 have obtained other jobs. Thirteen reported that they had retired when made redundant. The remainder were divided equally between sickness and unemployment. Only three acquired • permanent' employment. The other fourteen obtained jobs of a more marginal and temporary character. There is an inverse relation between length of service with Bse and subsequent employment. 6 Family composition and social networks. Eighty are married and 45 of these couples live on their-own. Half have living parents or parents-in-law and nearly half of all parents are seen daily. Most children have left home but a third of these are seen daily. There is a large number of siblings, 1 '---------- - --~ 10% of whom are seen daily. There are few apparent contacts with ex-workmates. Participation in social activities (primarily social clubs) has declined since redundancy. 7 Attitudes to age and the future. There are marked differences between opt1m1sts and pess1m1sts. The latter are associated with a feeling of degradation about unemployment. A number reported that they felt their age is 'against' them, and many felt that they are too old to search for jobs. 8 Health, retirement and generations. 67 reported a health complaint associated with redundancy and 41 said they were currently ill. There is evidence of an association between ill-health and reasons for redundancy. Ill-health is an important factor in the anticipation of residential mobility. There is a substantial degree of malaise, correlated with pessimism about the fut~re. About one third reported that they were retired, some because of ill-health, others because of the financial inducements. Most have learnt to accept their own retirement whilst believing that people generally should hang on to their jobs wherever possible. They are well aware of the implications of their redundancy for the continued employment and financial well being of the younger generation. 9 Cono1usion. This formulates certain priorities regarding present fieldwork. One important conclusion is that there is a certain pegre~ of homogenei~y w~thin the 92 and therein lies the potential strength of the current project. Appendices. The three research instruments. 2 1 INTRODUCTION --------~-----------~~-~------------------------------ ------------ This report has been prep'ared in January 1984. It presents the results of an analysis of data drawn from the survey quest ionnaires of the ESRC-funded research project: 'Redundancy in steel, local networks and domestic organisation' (G00230023) - referred to subsequently as the Steel Project. This analysis has been carried out and the report written erior to the fieldwork of the present project: 'Retirement through redundancy' (G00232031). It was decided to do this for four reasons: (i) to identify the most appropriate sample of older workers for the present project; I I ' (ii) to examine and summarise the data already acquired for this sample, (iii) to identify particular topics, variables and associa tions that should be examined in more detail, (iv) for individual respondents, to identify gaps or incon sistencies in the data already acquired and to earmark particular topics to be raised during the forthcoming interview. It should be stressed that this report does not contain a conclusive analysis, nor does it attempt to relate data to a broader sociological framework or to existing literature. It is primarily intended to identify empirically priorities for the fieldwork of 'Retirement through redundancy'. (la) In the rest of this report, comments or observa tions that are specifically about the future fieldwork of the present project are indented and numbered. The following is an extract from Lee (1983a). It describes the sampling procedure of the Steel project and presents a summary profile of the redundant workers (of all ages) who were sampled: "Data have been collected by means of a longitudinal survey of a sample of those made redundant from the Abbey works in Port Talbot in 1980, who have been interviewed in the summer of. ..1981, . the spring of 1982 and again in the winter of 1982 • liThe Wave 1 interview sample was drawn from a list of workers made redundant at asc, Port Talbot, in 1980 and which was held by MSC Wales. As the population of redundant workers was skewed towards older age groups, younger respon- 3 dents were disproportionately sampled in order to give sufficient sample numbers of younger workers still likely to be in the labour market, Survey results from Wave 1 report ed here have been re-weighted to reflect the original age distribution. Some 30t of those originally sampled declined' a request from MSC for co-operation. Of the remainder (who totalled 1,020), 752 respondents (or-74%) were actually interviewed. "Comparisons between some limited information made available by asc and the survey data suggest that in most respects the sample results adequately represent the population of redundant workers. A further exercise carried out by MSC suggests that little substantial difference exists between the post-redundancy employment registration behaviour of those interviewed as against those who declined to co operate after the initial approach from MSC. "Those ma~e,r~dundant from BSC Port Talbot, were, according to the s~rvey figures, overwhelmingly male, Welsh-born and ' in the older age groups. In the present sample, after re- wel.ghtl.ng,• I !. '.. 42% .. of the1"" redundant were found to b,e over 55 at the time, I of interview,I, and two-thirds, were aged 45 or over. Only 61 of 'those in our sample were female, although there is some ev~d~nce. to suggest that women are a group somewhat under-represented in the sample. Of those interviewed 88% had been born in Wales, though only 14% claimed actually to be able to speak Welsh, Perhaps reflecting the age dist ribution in the sample and possibly the impact of redundancy payments, one-third of those interviewed owned their own home outright, while a further quarter were paying off a mortgage. At the same time a substantial proportion - some 40% in all - were council tenants. "Classifying the occupations that wOJ;kers had at asc 'in terms of the collapsed 7-point scale -deri'ved from the Goldthorpe-Hope scale (Goldthorpe and Hope, 1974; Goldthorpe, 1980), the following profile of those made redundant from sse, port Talbot, emerges. "Just over a quarter of those sampled had' 'had a non-manual occupation - though included in this figure are the 10% of redundants who were routine service workers. Relatively few of those questioned (around 8% in fact) were completely unskilled, 20% were semi-skilled, while at 45% the largest category were skilled workers - though this includes skilled production workers as well as craftsmen. "Given the average age, length of service and relatively high wage levels which workers in the steel industry in South Wales enjoyed, together with special financial prov isions available to redundant steel workers the level of redundancy payments obtained by those in the sample was relatively high. Around two-fifths had received more than £5,000. Just under 5% had pad less than £1,000, while in 4 18% of cases the payment had been b~tween £1,000 and £3,000. It should perhaps also be noted that redundant steelworkers who subsequently found employment were entitled to have the wage in their new job made up to 90% of their BSC wage under the provisions of the Iron and Steel Employees Readaption Benefits'Scheme under which the ~uropean Coal and Steel Community provides funds to aid the restructuring of the steel industry. "There is a sense, therefore, in which one would have to say, without denyi'ng th~ impcic't' of redundancy oIl: these w~rker~, th~t ~h~y are in redundancy as in employment relatively advantaged. I "At the time of interview, over a year after redundancy, one-fifth of the sample were back in full-time employment. Two-and-a-half per cent were working part-time, 6% were self-employed and just over 7% were on retraining courses. Some 31% were unemployed at the time of the interview, while close to one-third had retired, were ill or were not looking for ~ork for, some other reason. Some 60% of those currently in employment'were having the wages they received in their new job made up.