Golden years, gold standards: ageing at PRIO from a gender and diversity perspective

The workforce at PRIO is getting older. As we age, we are all subject to varying degrees of cognitive and physical decline – while we still face an unrelenting pressure to stay abreast of developments in our field and changes in the work environment. Instead of questioning why some seniors seem unable to keep up, this project turns its gaze to PRIO’s inclusiveness as an employer and asks whether we are doing what we can, beyond the legal requirements, to support seniors in an ever-changing work environment. And while Norwegian law and pension schemes are blind to gender or other aspects of diversity, our project starts with the acknowledgement that ageing and retirement are not the same for all groups of people: we can, for example, expect that the additional demands on women to care for family members, particularly if these family members are located outside Norway, can lead them to withdraw from the workforce sooner than necessary. We aim to develop gold standards of support at PRIO to ensure that staff nearing retirement can actively prepare for their futures and remain vital and included in the workforce in a meaningful way. This will require an innovative and intersectional approach, whereby ageing acts as an important lens for gender and diversity work more broadly. Using the logic of action research, GOLD will begin by interviewing PRIO employees nearing retirement to better understand how they envision their “golden years”. We want to know not only what they want, but also what they feel is expected of them, what they are concerned about, and how changes at PRIO could help. Based on these interviews and lessons learned by other organizations, we will develop and implement a set of measures to address the diverse needs of the ageing population at PRIO. Finally, we will evaluate the implementation phase to further refine the measures and identify lessons learned for diversity work at PRIO.