Mid-life career woes are widespread, but women get hit hardest

The jobs market is especially tough at the moment for graduates with the advent of AI changing the workforce, but unfortunately it's not necessarily easier for those who are already several years or even decades into their careers.

Almost half of women (47%) said they found it harder to get a job in mid-life, compared to earlier in life, while 40% of men agreed, according to a survey caried out on behalf of AJ Bell Money Matters.

If you’re trying to find work, get a promotion or secure a pay rise when you’re in mid-life, it can feel like pushing water uphill. If you’re a woman, it can feel like you’re doing it with a rake. For those looking for a senior role, you’ve often got a mountain to climb with that rake.

The trend is hard to see from official data. Women aged between 50 and 64 are less likely to be unemployed than men of the same age, which would seem to indicate they find it easier to find and keep work.

However, they’re also much more likely to be economically inactive than men of the same age, because many of them face other issues at the same time, according to ONS employment data.

Many will have had to stop work to care for ageing parents or partners, while some will have been forced to cut their hours or stop working because of ill health – including symptoms related to the menopause. They may have tried to find work, and found it so difficult that they gave up, falling instead into the inactive column.

Older people struggle

To get to the bottom of what people are actually going through, AJ Bell Money Matters commissioned a survey asking men and women about their mid-life experiences in finding and keeping work, as well as gaining pay and promotions – compared to earlier in their career. Significant numbers of both said most of these things were more difficult.

This doesn’t all come down to ageism. As anyone gets more senior, there are fewer roles available. In an era where businesses are increasingly de-layering and taking out levels of management, this means even fewer opportunities for people at this stage in their career. However, undoubtedly ageism is playing its part, as some businesses write off older workers as lacking energy, being slow to adapt or not being engaged as they count down to retirement.

In 2018 a report by the Women and Equalities Committee found widespread evidence of ageism, particularly in recruitment and when selecting people for redundancy.

The speed of change in the workplace is also likely to be feeding into ageist beliefs. More than half of men (53%) and women (57%) said the skills needed in their job are changing more quickly in mid-life. Meanwhile, around half of men (47%) and women (52%) say they have experienced more changes to the workplace than earlier in their career. If recruiters and managers are convinced that older people can’t keep up, they may be less likely to promote or employ them.

The double whammy of being an older woman

The Women and Equalities Committee report found that being a woman amplifies the difficulties in finding work and gaining promotions, with assumptions being made about women in mid-life as well as decisions based on ‘lookism.’ There is a risk that some workplaces still unconsciously reflect the ‘double standard of ageing’ identified over 50 years ago by writer and social commentator Susan Sontag, judging men on their wealth and success – which may increase as they get older – and women on their youth and beauty – which may not.

This pattern emerged in AJ Bell Money Matters’ research, with women more likely than men to say it had become harder to find a job, keep it, gain promotion or secure a pay rise in mid-life. In some cases the differences were striking, with 47% of women saying it was harder to find a job compared with 40% of men, 51% saying it was harder to get a promotion, compared with 42% of men, and 48% saying it was harder to get a pay rise compared with 43% of men.

Working life isn’t harder across the board when you hit mid-life. Most women and men said it got easier to keep a job at this stage, presumably because they had the opportunity to demonstrate their value to their employer. Meanwhile, around a third of women said it was easier to find a job at this stage (36%), get promoted (31%) and get a pay rise (35%). These figures were all higher for men – at 43%, 40% and 41% respectively.

For women in perimenopause or menopause, the fight to work was even harder. Half of those in menopause right now say it’s harder to get a job in mid-life, compared to earlier in life. Among men the figure is 40%. Meanwhile 51% of those in menopause said it’s harder to get a pay rise in mid-life, compared to 43% of men. Meanwhile, 56% of those in perimenopause at the moment said it’s harder to get a promotion in mid-life, compared to 42% of men.

Financial implications

For those who are out of work in mid-life, the impact can be horrendous. It hits in three ways – through losing your income, taking longer to get a new job than you expected, and then having less time to rebuild your career and finances before retirement.

If you have emergency savings, you could spend your way through them and erode your safety net. If your savings are spent completely, you may need to dip into long-term investments, at a time of life when you expected to be building assets rather than losing them. If the problem persists, you could even end up being forced to sell your home.

If you end up having to take a more junior role, the wage loss can persist for years, making it harder to rebuild everything from savings to pensions. The longer this goes on for, the less time you have to put things back together before you have to retire.

For those who are in work, but being overlooked for pay rises and promotions, it puts a lid on your lifestyle both now and in retirement. The gender pensions gap is 48% according to the latest HMRC figures, and many women who have had career gaps or worked part-time for a period will be relying on more financially rewarding work later in life to close the gap. Without promotions or pay rises, they either have to make significant compromises in their lifestyle today or consider working later in life or retiring on a lower income.

Five steps to protect yourself

Those who find themselves in a precarious working situation during their mid-life don’t have to let it wash over them. We’ve looked at five steps to take to protect your finances at this stage of your working life.

1. Build your emergency savings. As a rough rule of thumb, you should have enough savings to cover three to six months’ worth of essential spending in an easy access account, to protect you if things take a turn for the unexpected. If you are concerned about your job, or you have lots of people relying on you and punchy financial commitments, you may want to err on the side of building more rather than less.
2. Use any redundancy pay wisely. It’s a good idea to cut back on spending to make it last for as long as possible. If you find work quickly, you may be able to redirect your pay-off into a pension, or take a break before your new job starts. If you do this at the outset and struggle to find work, you could sorely regret it.
3. Don’t rely on future wealth. When you’re modelling how much you should be paying into a pension right now, many pension calculators will assume continued work and pay rises to retirement. Consider what would happen if you were out of work for a period, your pay dropped, or you couldn’t work for as long as possible. You may be able to increase contributions to protect your pension against the unexpected.
4. Work on yourself. It’s useful to build your network both in real life and online. You may be able to update your skills too – either through workplace training or in your own time, to put yourself in a better position if you need to look for work again.
5. Protect yourself from ill health. This could be part of anyone’s older age so it’s worth considering cover like income protection or critical illness, which can help bridge the gap if you’re unable to work because of health problems.