Envelhecimento no trabalho: determinantes, condições e impactos na permanência

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on aging in the workplace, analyzing the determinants, conditions, and impacts on the retention of state public servants in Maranhão. To this end, we constructed a theoretical-methodological framework around the categories of alienation, work, old age, and aging. We conducted qualitative research, using historical-dialectical materialism as our theoretical-methodological framework. To achieve the results of this research, we carried out a literature review, documentary research, and field research, the latter developed through semi-structured interviews with the research subjects: permanent and/or commissioned public servants eligible for retirement. Initially, we point out the relationship between work and alienation, highlighting the alienating and oppressive nature of work in the capitalist mode of production. We analyze the historical and social construction of old age and the impacts of changes in the world of work on older workers. Next, we address population aging, the inclusion of older people in the labor market, and the impacts of longevity in a neoliberal context. We identify ideological, cultural, family, and socioeconomic aspects that affect job retention, relating them to new forms of precarious work and the implications for older workers. We present the evolution of social protection in Brazil, the impacts of neoliberalism on labor and worker protection, and the meaning of work for older workers in this context. Finally, we analyze aging in the workplace, based on the results of interviews conducted with state public servants. We conclude that ideological, cultural, family, and socioeconomic determinants are present in workers' motivations for remaining in their jobs, with financial determinants being particularly important. The conditions of this continued employment are marked by discriminatory experiences in the workplace due to ageism, except in some work environments, but, in general, the socio-historical reproduction of old age in capitalism marks the labor relations of the interviewees. Thus, the impacts on public servants reinforce the logic of exploitation that transforms age into a criterion for exclusion, renders experience invisible, and devalues workers.