Working Through Ageing

Book Synopsis

Growing up and older at work is something we all experience, yet it remains surprisingly overlooked and under theorized in management and organization studies.

In this groundbreaking book, Kathleen Riach draws on a 10 year longitudinal study to offer fresh theoretical and empirical insights into how ageing is experienced in the workplace.

Introducing a new phenomenological theory of ageing at work, the book examines how individuals negotiate age-biased workplace cultures and adapt to their changing bodies within the context of financial capitalism. It reveals that ageing at work is not simply about demographic change or ageist stereotypes, but is an ongoing process that involves balancing professional expectations, the life course, and the self.

Review Quotes

"Pulls back the curtain on the hidden world of ageing in the workplace, revealing how ageing is actively done in relation with and through our colleagues, teams, and institutions. Thoughtful, rigorous, and deeply human, this is a vital and timely contribution to scholarship on ageing, embodiment, and the social self", Richard A. Settersten, Jr., Oregon State University

"With enviable clarity, this book ensures we acquire the richest possible grasp of the paradoxical process of ageing in the workplace. Essential reading for everyone concerned with the interconnected vulnerabilities of the human condition", Lynne Segal, author of Out of Time: The Pleasures & Perils of Ageing and Professor emerita of Birkbeck, University of London

"None of us is getting any younger, yet the very experience of ageing at work is often left in silence. In this extraordinary opus, Kathleen Riach shows us how existential questions of life and death are embodied and enacted in the everyday lives of ageing professionals." Torkild Thanem, Stockholm University

"Thoroughly researched and highly informative, this book provides a wealth of insights on how ex-hedge fund workers experience ageing, and more generally how our organizational lives are affected by ageing and its absent-presence." Andrew D. Brown, University of Bath

About the Author

Kathleen Riach is Professor of Organizational Studies at University of Glasgow and Visiting Professor at the Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation at Monash University. Her pioneering research explores the lived experience of inequality throughout the working life course, with a particular focus on ageing as both an organizing and organized phenomenon. A prominent advocate for gender equality and economic empowerment, she serves as a UK delegate for the G20 Engagement Group, the W20, where she contributes to global policy dialogue. Kathleen has also collaborated with organizations and policymakers at both national and international levels to drive impactful change.