Business owners indicate that the technological gap and adaptation to change are two barriers to hiring older people.
In Colombia, six out of every ten workers over 60 years of age are employers or are self-employed.
This population has a greater participation as independents compared to the national total. The majority are in industries such as agriculture and commerce, have a relatively low salary and high rates of informality, said Andrés García-Suaza, researcher at the Labor Observatory of the Universidad del Rosario.
García-Suaza is one of the authors of the report “Challenges and opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship in older adults” from the Observatory for Entrepreneurship and Employability of Older Adults of the University of Rosario y Porvenir. This study indicates that “it is evident that older adults have a greater participation as independent compared to the national total with an average of 63.5% and 34.7% respectively.”
“This allows us to see that older adults are becoming more and more independent, which may be due to different reasons, among them, a desire for the independence and flexibility that a microbusiness offers, or an aspect related to the lack of labor inclusion that exists. by the productive sector with this population,” the report states.
According to this analysis, which seeks to measure entrepreneurship and employment opportunities for older people in the country’s five main cities, when quantifying the reasons why they chose to be independent, 38.2% said they wanted more independence and 25.3% He did it because he had a negative self-perception of his age. Only 10% declared that they do it to seek entrepreneurship.
For Diana Mena, researcher at the Observatory and one of the authors of the report, older adults who work independently are mostly in industries, such as agriculture and commerce, they have a relatively low salary and high rates of informality.
“Older people argue for self-employment, since they value independence, but they also point out the lack of opportunities to become employed as employees. This highlights the relevance of both employment and entrepreneurship programs,” said the researcher.
And, according to the International Labor Organization in its report Panorama of social protection in Latin America and the Caribbean 2022, more than half of the population over 65 years of age in the country has no income from work or a pension. , which makes entrepreneurship the most viable option for many.
Added to this, the Global Participation Rate (GPR), whose sample gives a perspective of the working-age population that is actively working, showed that older adults are less active in the labor market, with a participation of only
30.3%. For women, the picture is more complex, since the TGP gap between men and women is 25.2%, with women in Bucaramanga being the furthest behind with a participation of 16.3%.
“Challenges and opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship in older adults” from the Observatory for Entrepreneurship and Employability of Older Adults of the University of Rosario y Porvenir.
According to Julieth Ríos, author of the report, the main reasons why older people do not find work are health problems and family responsibilities, the latter being the most prevalent in older women.
“This implies that progress is required to improve the well-being of the older adult population to guarantee quality of life and the development of productive activities, but a gender approach is also required, since the gaps that are observed and have become visible are equally prevalent among older people,” the academic highlighted.
In the words of Andrés García-Suaza, many companies highlight technological barriers and adaptability to change as the main challenges when hiring personnel over 65 years of age.
“This reveals an opportunity, since through training it is possible to reduce the frictions that affect the insertion of older people into the labor market, which must also be accompanied by greater knowledge of employment programs for this population, which in Most companies don’t know,” said García-Suaza.
For researchers, demographic change and low coverage of protection mechanisms for old age put the need for income generation opportunities for the elderly population at the forefront of studies.
Andrea Avila, dean of the Faculty of Entrepreneurship at the Universidad del Rosario, added that the institution is working on the design of programs so that in 2024 strategies are deployed to reduce the productivity gaps of older people.
Currently, the population of elderly people in Colombia amounts to 7,611,696 and only 21.8% are pensioned. This indicator presents important differences at the regional level and by sex, which indicates that actions along these lines require a differential approach.
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