Age Work Balance: Balanced Approaches for an Ageing Workforce in Metropolitan Areas

Partner entities

MET. MetropolisNet. European Network of Local Development Partnerships in Metropolitan Areas:
· ZSI. Social Innovation Centre, Vienna (Austria)
· Lawaetz-Stiftung,  Hamburg (Germany)
· CIOFS-FP. Italian Center of Salesian women’s works – Vocational Training Association Rome (Italy)
· Documenta. European Institute for Training and Development Studies, Santander (Spain)
· GSUB,  Berlin (Germany)
· DEP. Dublin Employment Pact, Dublin (Ireland)
· Haringey Council, London (United Kingdom)
· Tampere City Council, Tampere (Finland)

General description

Within this project we want to concentrate on existing measures targeted to older long term unemployed people over 50 in metropolitan areas.

We want to find out what constitutes an innovative measure in order to integrate them into sustainable employment. So the project goal is to find out the best balanced relationship between a particular approach and the network – structure for a successful integration of the target group into the labour market in order to implement the transferable results into a mainstream strategy.

Target audience

Unemployed people over 50 in metropolitan areas.

Methodology

For achieving these goals we will analyze within the MetropolisNet 7 existing measures located in Dublin, Tampere, Berlin & Hamburg, Santander, London and Vienna, 5 of them apply a specific approach and 2 of them as control group apply non target-group-specific measures.  

The research design is inspired by a quasi – experimental research design and includes the peer review method as an instrument which ensures the mutual learning process among the stakeholders on a local, national and European level. All activities will be supported by various disseminations & mainstreaming tasks.

An important part of the project is its dissemination and mainstreaming strategy. The planned strategy is divided into a dissemination part and into a mainstreaming part. We follow the definition of the European Union and define the two terms as follows:

1.   Dissemination: sharing information, raising awareness of the work done in the project, of the results achieved.

2.   Mainstreaming: transferring of these results and taking up in every day policy and standard practice.

As the development of transferable models/elements, a coherent strategy and the development of a practical handbook is planned, we focus on horizontal mainstreaming, which is often used when mainstreaming a practice.

We will use a dual approach: 1. – Working to change the mainstream. 2. – Using of existing networks to maintain visibility and to keep the issue alive.

The project will be developed in three phases:
1. Research phase: to identify and specify innovative measures/approaches and good    practices.
2. Development phase: to develop models and transferable elements.
3. Mainstreaming phase: mainstreaming of the results.

Aims

Our two overall goals will be reached by carrying several concrete activities:
1. To find out the best balanced relationship between a particular approach to bring elder people into sustainable employment and the network – structure between different public and private actor son different levels for a successful integration of the target group into the labour market.
a. Identification of non-context related elements on how to integrate long-term unemployed elder people over 50 into sustainable employment
b. The development of a model which allows to build up a pilot project & give recommendations/guidelines for transfer

2. And to implement the transferable results into a mainstream strategy
a. Return of lessons learned: give recommendations for the already checked positive approaches (How to minimize the weakness and support the strength for making the approach more successful and sustainable)
b. Design of a European mainstreaming strategy on how to integrate long – term unemployed elder people over 50 into sustainable employment

Outcomes

With this project we expect first of all an increased cooperation between different stakeholders (policy makers, NGOs and researchers). The Peer review local city workshops support the mutual learning process between them on a local and national level.

 The results will be:  
– An increase awareness of the importance of active inclusion of older long-term unemployed into sustainable employment in general and an increased awareness about setting up the right incentives for the target group  
– The development of a shared basis of knowledge about a balanced relationship between a particular approach and the network – structure for a successful integration of older long-term unemployed into the labour market
–  Recommendations to the different players at local or national level

In addition to that we expect different results on a European scale:
– The development of shared common characteristics, indicators and a common terminology, with simultaneous consideration of the diversity of the single measures.    
– The development of defined measures (balanced relationship between approach and network structure) behind a European policy for the active inclusion of older long-term unemployed.

Important outputs of the action will be:
– A common terminology paper.
– Five Peer reviews local city workshops in Vienna, Hamburg, Berlin, Santander and Dublin
– Five Model reports + recommendation for each peer review city targeted to decision-makers on local and national level and to NGOs and researchers.
– A strategy paper + set of transferable prototypes (models and elements) targeted to decision-makers on local, national and European level.
– Practical implementation guidelines targeted to policy-makers, NGOs and researchers.
– A final conference.