1. Marta Zientek
Instytut Europeistyki
Uniwersytet Jagielloński
E-mail: mzientek@message.pl
EMPLOYMENT AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT
AMONG ELDERLY WOMEN: A CRITICAL AP-
PROACH OF GLOBAL SOCIAL CHANGE
“Promoting Social Solidarity Economy
means empowering people in a sustainable
development perspective. It is also a way to
increase their own entrepreneurship style
in employment and self-employment policy of state.”
Eric Lavilluniere, INEES General Coordinator
The elderly population of today has few similarities with the elderly
population of the future global society. However, we can observe that the
concept of globalization often excludes the concept of sustainable and
conscious participation of elderly people in full employment and the
whole global social change during the last decade. Nowadays, most of
them suffer from the status imposed on them locally in the global era they
live and consequently they just simply wait for the retirement associated
to the final phase of their life, living oldness in a negative form, with
many prejudices and severe limitations on their everyday activities. Their
conscious and active taking part in every sphere of their life can be consi-
1

2. dered as a continuing development of themselves in their local employ-
ment spaces, which are changing rapidly due to internationalization and
“mcdolnatization” processes. Participation in continuing training activi-
ties among all groups of ages should be perceived by researchers as the
main factors in a way to constitute an effective strategy of development in
the level of human resources’ qualifications, ready to adapt to fast moving
global transitions and changes. Furthermore, the conscious self-
development maintains elderly workers and pensioners qualified through-
out not only their professional life but also their everyday life. It is central
for promoting and keeping the global development process in any region
and moreover due to that policy elderly citizens are professionally up-
dated and prepared to go into new global activities. What’s more, these
factors also focus on their general perceiving the space and time they live
and give them feeling of being still useful individuals by the fact of creat-
ing their images of learning and obtaining experience, their intellectual
flexibility. All these experiences they are able to affect with and given
dimensions may help to suggest a strong and sustainable promotion of
further strategies for improving self-directed learning and learning to faci-
litate the learning of the others. According to Paulo Freire’s point of view
people start feeling old in their minds at first, mainly when they get the
message that they should retire and do nothing because the younger are
taking their space in a strong competition in a local labour market: “ Age-
ing without getting old… We are old or young, much more in the form as
we understand the world, of the availability of our dedication, curiosity,
when knowing whose conquest never tires you and whose discovery nev-
er leaves you passive and unsatisfied.”1 The active ageing considered by
1
Freire P..: Educacao e Mudanca., Paz e Terra, Rio de Janeiro 1979, p. 88-89
2

3. the WHO for the first decade of XXI century, is defined as a process of
optimization of chances not only for health and security but mostly for
social participation. Social participation includes from the interpersonal
exchanges to the right of action and duties of citizenship, as well as the
communitarian social participation. All presented above measures of pre-
vention of the elderly social exclusion are aimed to achieve active ageing.
According to T. Bauman point of view this process should be perceived in
the whole life process and not to target only the engagement of elderly
people. “There are lots of actions which could be included in, such as: the
implementation of well balanced economic-social-familiar policies, share
of life experiences in the family circle, differentiation of attitudes among
the others.”2 Along with the creation of innovative projects, that fulfill the
elderly needs, it should be promoted affective share and mutual help
based on understanding the objects. Globalization process is one of the
most impressive changes today and it provides many different effects and
causes in such scientific fields as: politics and economics, social causes,
cultural and economic changes in daily life and work with influence on
lifelong learning policy. Social causes have been closely related with cul-
tural factors “because people’s identities change due to changes in every-
day rituals which lost their meaning in the organization of our daily rou-
tine.”3 A. Giddens considers economic factors as “the new significance
and organization of work because of changes in information technologies
– the new electronic economy and the role of multinational corpora-
tions.”4 But the notion of immaterial work is very stimulating and useful
for local workers, mainly the elderly who work in constantly changing
2
Bauman T.: Uczenie się jako przedsięwzięcie na całe życie., Universitas, Kraków 2005
3
Bruner J.: Życie jako narracja, Kwartalnik Pedagogiczny 1990, nr 4
4
Giddens A.: Citizenship in the global era, London IPRR Press, London 2000
3

4. work environment, without a specific space in the process of obtaining a
work experience with a difficulty in differentiating between work life and
daily life of each simple employee. My re-
search study focuses on the opinions of working women and is based on
qualitative biographical research where data has been collected in the
form of recording some individual interview among elderly women who
are still active professionally. The analysis of these narratives are strongly
based on the concepts of Chicago’s school of interactionism ( Znaniecki
and Mead ). The research was conducted from April 2008 till June 2008.
The aim of this research was to recognize elderly women’s interpretations
and attitudes towards the current stream of global changes and the neces-
sity of taking part in some lifelong learning actions. The research question
was “How do elderly women experience and interpret their life being in-
volved in a strongly fast moving process of employment, rapidly chang-
ing spaces connected with local actions and the development of their pro-
fessions and finally their attitudes and opinions about the necessity of
lifelong learning in Poland”.
There are different ways to feel employed and develop personality
or just to be an active old citizenship nowadays. We can not omit a very
trendy European model of social economy / la economie sociale concept,
which could be also known as “the economy of solidarity or simply citi-
zenship economy focused mainly on marginalized social groups.”5 The
economy of solidarity is one of the most popular sector of economy be-
cause of the lack and weaknesses of global actions and local governments
role. “The citizenship economy is a good notion to give the elderly a
strong opportunity to act effectively in a local environment and to fulfill
5
Bertelsen J.: Trzeci sektor jako pracodawca (w: W stronę aktywnej polityki pro społecznej),
Instytut Spraw Społecznych, Warszawa 2001
4

5. all multistage social aims by the “employment” thanks to EU funds.”6
Thanks to this idea of the third sector of economy, the elderly can build
their own “solidarity of employment” such as many local associations and
small citizenship’s actions which give them the possibility to work active-
ly and develop their socially oriented actions in a local area. Lifelong
learning in the form of local development such as The Third Age Univer-
sity can be a good example in a global era of employment. Attending
TAU is similar to being a full-time employed and feeling still useful in a
workplace by acting locally in conditions of global market environment.
The elderly presented and researched here, have decided to take lives into
their hands and started doing classes in the Third Age University in a lo-
cal space. Their actions are visible in this global social change apart from
the fact that they are treated as useless by global institutions and global
labour market. Their lives are also a good example of a small local entre-
preneurship which should be seen as a background to the whole global
economy.
My research was directed to the women-students of the Third Ages
University in Szprotawa. These 60 interviewees attend four courses: Eng-
lish, German, Vegetarian Cooking and Photo&Art but they also work as
teachers, shop assistants, waitresses, nurses and social workers. The pre-
sented text is the result of a biographical analysis of 60 people.
The selected findings of the interviewees statements, placed during
entering the narrations, are very alike:
- There have been some people in my family, who have decided to
attend to the Third Age University apart from the fact that they’re still
employed
6
Youngman F.: The political economy of adult education and development., NIACE Press, Leice-
ster 2000, p.7-8
5

6. - Participating in courses is mostly caused by the economy reasons
but some of my elderly relevants have lost their self-esteem while looking
for a job in our local area
- I have graduated from the university with a reward and I did all
my best in my work but what I have got earlier and now is the one third of
a disability pension my family gets. I think that I forget about my prob-
lems while attending classes -
All the expenses are growing up fast but our salaries and pensions are
always too small to cover them, so thanks to taking part in cooking
classes I can learn how to prepare some cheap meals for my family – my
husband, who is also a pensioner and my two adult children, who cannot
find any well-paid job now
- I’m a nurse by profession, so as you can imagine, my pension is
really cheap nowadays. All my family live close to German border and I
have decided to participate in German course because I want to work
abroad as a baby-sitter or adult/pensioner house care and I need to have a
common knowledge of that language to communicate fluently
The reasons of taking classes in The Third Age University:
- to live a suitable life
- to escape from the poverty and the permanent lack of communica-
tion with other elderly - to go
away from the place where our humanity is threatened - to get
the responsibility of daily life - to feel
more useful member of family - to get
a better status in the own family and be respected by other mem-
bers - to get back
6

7. feeling of safety - to protect the dig-
nity and honor
Attending courses as a way of fulfilling the dreams:
- learning new foreign languages or reminding some knowledge
- to get the taste of the adventure with something new in life
- to touch the world of real vegetarian cuisine and eating manners
- to allow the dreams to come true
Lifelong learning as an opportunity to get more knowledge:
- to learn a foreign language
- to meet the other culture and places
- to deepen the understanding of differences among the people
Lifelong learning as a struggle for better life conditions:
- a fight against himself/herself
- the fight against the deadly fear
- to fight the hard time of our life
- that is a fight for human dignity
The Third Age University is an opportunity for the elderly:
- to live their own way
- to be independent and follow their own needs and use them
- to be autonomous and responsible for themselves
Their active citizenship in The Third Age University as a fashion:
- The social status of those elderly women who participated in
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8. YAU’s classes is much more higher than the others. There were 11 inter-
viewees who explained lifelong learning process as a way of being mod-
ern and fashionable. They stressed that those elderly who spent some time
in The Third Age University have a higher reputation: they are perceived
as brave, open minded and much more valued than other elderly. The
Third Age University students ( all of them are women ) claim that their
association based mainly their self-employment is possible thanks to EU
funds they are struggling for since the last two years. They are volunteers
but they have also the strong motivation to build their own association as
a small entrepreneurial company which exists and act locally because
there is still a need of the local society to obtain their work. Day by day
they learn how to work in groups and how to cooperate actively and be
useful for the local authorities and other citizens. All their initiatives are
perceived as local entrepreneurship and leadership substitute for the lack
and weakness of the governmental and local authorities actions.
To sum up, including the old women perspectives of global social
changes in labour market is scientifically useful, especially when the con-
cept of new citizenship economy has appeared. I would like to point out
that the problem of the employment of the elderly still exists but there is
an effective tool to build a bridge between full-employed and socially
excluded due to ageing process. The problem influence can be decreased
by involving social and professional actions locally. Both these actions,
being not only a local citizenship struggle for better social life but also a
fight for employment fulfillment are good background for new employ-
ment of solidarity policy. Furthermore, this new concept of social solidar-
ity economy build some new alternative sectors of employment and “spe-
cific local labour environment for marginalized and social excluded in a
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9. global market.”7 Although we can observe this good vision of the future
of the elderly, a new question connected with opinions of the local go-
vernmental authorities shouldn’t be omitted because it is worth to know.
But I take into the consideration that there is a good opportunity to ob-
serve the constantly changing environment of The Third Age University
and focus on continuing this research by including some new perspectives
of new actors in structural society. And finally maybe there will be a
chance to do next study and present its results during upcoming confe-
rences.
BIBLIOGRAFIA:
1. Bauman T.: Uczenie się jako przedsięwzięcie na całe życie., Universitas, Kraków
2005.
2. Bertelsen J.: Trzeci sektor jako pracodawca (w: W stronę aktywnej polityki społecz-
nej), Instytut Spraw Społecznych, Warszawa 2003
3. Bruner J.: Życie jako narracja., Kwartalnik Pedagogiczny 1990, nr 4.
4. Freire P.: Educacao e Mudanca., Paz e Terra, Rio de Janeiro 1979
5. Giddens A.: Citizenship in the global era., London IPRR Press, Londyn 200
6. Keohane R., Nye J.: Governing in a Globalizing World., Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge 2000
7. Kurantowicz E.: O uczących się społecznościach. Wybrane praktyki ludzi dorosłych.
Wyd. Naukowe Dolnośląskiej Szkoły Wyższej, Wrocław 2007
8. Youngman F.: The political economy of adult education and development., NIACE
Press, Leicester 2000
7
Keohane R., Nye J.: Governing in a Globalizing World, Cambridge Press 2000, a także w:
Kurantowicz E.: O uczących się społecznościach. Wybrane praktyki ludzi dorosłych., Wydawnic-
two Naukowe Dolnośląskiej Szkoły Wyższej, Wrocław 2007
9