What age-friendly employment has to do with mental health

Work is one of the main sources of daily structure, purpose and social contact in adult life. That makes the way employers handle the final decade of a career a question of mental health, and not only one of workforce planning. It is also a point where two of the BSR Mental Health Platform’s work streams meet: mental health at work, and mental health across the life course.

The Platform project “Solutions for Age-Friendly Employer” (SAFE) works on precisely that ground. SAFE brings together four partners from Estonia, Finland and Sweden to strengthen employment opportunities for workers aged 55 and over, with a focus on the health and wellbeing sectors. Its central instrument is a digital self assessment tool that allows an employer to review its own organisation and then work with recommendations and guidance to improve age friendliness in both the working environment and management practice.

Retirement is a transition, not a date

Tiina Tambaum of Tallinn University Haapsalu College, speaking at a SAFE training event for Estonian employers, described retirement as a gradual process rather than a single event. It reshapes identity and daily routine as much as it changes income. Statistically it has a stronger effect on men, whose social networks are often built around the workplace and can thin out quickly once that anchor is removed. The transition also tends to coincide with other significant life changes: caring for an ageing relative, becoming a grandparent, or losing a partner.

Her practical conclusion is that preparation should begin roughly ten years before pension age, and that it should involve both the employee and the employer. Framed this way, retirement preparation stops being an administrative step at the end of a career and becomes part of what a life course approach to mental health looks like in practice.

Half of what keeps people at work is psychosocial

Two recent master’s theses, carried out independently in different countries and different parts of the sector, point in a similar direction.

At Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Finland, Krista Lounamaa reviewed ten peer reviewed studies published between 2015 and 2022 to identify what helps experienced nurses stay in work until retirement. Six themes emerged: physical work ability, flexible scheduling and manageable workload, mental flexibility and resilience, a collaborative and supportive work climate, role renewal and recognition, and continuous professional development.

In Estonia, Triinu Lillepärg examined organisational culture that supports employees of all ages, including those approaching retirement, drawing on the example of the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund. Her findings identify training and development opportunities, flexibility, health support, inclusion and recognition, fair treatment, and a culture that values diversity as crucial. Workload balance stood out as the main area for improvement, since high work intensity is a significant reason for early retirement among older workers.

Read together, the two studies suggest that roughly half of what keeps experienced staff in work is psychosocial rather than physical: resilience, work climate, recognition, autonomy over the pace of work. These factors already appear in workforce retention discussions, though often under other labels.

Age-friendliness is largely good employer practice

Lillepärg’s work also concludes that the principles of an age friendly organisation align closely with universal good employer practice and benefit staff of all ages. This shifts age friendliness away from being an accommodation for one group and towards being an organisational quality that supports the whole workforce. Manageable workload, flexibility, recognition and a supportive climate protect mental health at any career stage. They are simply harder to do without once the physical and personal demands of later working life accumulate.

Next steps

SAFE has moved into piloting, with health and care employers in the partner countries working through the self assessment questionnaire and applying the recommended solutions. The BSR Mental Health Platform will follow the pilot findings and draw on them for the thematic reports and policy briefs on mental health at work and mental health across the life course.

Dive deeper into the SAFE project:

• Age-Friendly by Design: Why Employers Need SAFE Solutions, NDPHS, 24 February 2026
• Research Backs the SAFE Approach: Six Ways to Keep Experienced Nurses in Work, NDPHS, 25 June 2026
• SAFE project website

SAFE is financed by the European Regional Development Fund through Interreg Central Baltic 2021-2027.

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