This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The wonders of internet technology and the advent of the gig economy have given hope to many highly skilled workers that their reputations, built up over many years, can help them transition from a traditional office-based job (with all the associated pressures) to freelance work in which they provide clients with similar services but gain more control over their lives. Yet when it comes to such a transition by older workers late in their careers, there is an acute problem with this assumption: There is a misalignment between the historic reputation system they relied on to evaluate their value and the way online platforms operate based on the work actually arranged on that platform, according to research co-authored by Sienna Helena Parker, assistant professor in information systems at Cambridge Judge Business School.
"We call this a 'cold start' problem, and it's especially acute for late-career workers seeking to change their working pattern, but this has not been well studied or understood." The researchers find that late-career workers who change to freelance work often need to recalibrate not only their professional worth but also their motivations for making such a move, which is more challenging than it might look before they take the plunge. The misalignment found by Parker particularly affects late-career workers for a key reason: People at an early stage in their careers are more likely to accept a temporary loss of status through a freelance portfolio because they see it as leading to future rewards, whereas late-career workers often change to freelance work in the expectation that this will enable work and career to become less central to their lives—"placing greater value on finding immediate satisfaction in what they do rather than striving for professional advancement," says the research published in the leading journal Administrative Science Quarterly. The research focuses on workers aged 55 or older with at least 30 years of work experience, who have throughout their careers signaled their "skills, expertise and potential through credentials like job titles, company names and educational degrees." But these signals often do not translate to recognition by the freelance platforms used to match highly skilled workers and clients.
Instead, such platforms often amplify the cold-start problem through a rating system that requires workers to build credibility only through transactions using that platform. It's a vicious cycle: "Workers' non-platform experience contributes little to their platform-specific reputations, making it nearly impossible for them to begin securing work until they engage in activities that garner ratings promoted by the platform's algorithms and consequently, valued by clients," says the research. "In other words, actors on a platform can build reputations only from interactions captured within the platform's systems." Another complicating factor: The sort of hustle required to achieve these ratings resembles the pressure and stress these older workers sought to leave behind by transitioning to freelance platforms.
These findings matter, given the changing demographics of the labor market, including longer life expectancy and overstretched, less generous pension systems. Workers aged 55 and older are the fastest-growing segment of the workforce in many countries, so it's important to understand how older workers can effectively transition—or not—into platform work. Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. d research that matter—daily or weekly.
In the U.S., while members of the baby boom generation are well past official retirement age, more than two-thirds of those born between 1959 and 1964 said in a recent survey that they had no plans to retire before 2030. Labor Department says the share of workers age 55 or older is expected to climb to 23.8% by 2033, compared with 15.1% in 2003. The research by Parker focused specifically on workers who retired from full-time organizational employment but sought to continue working through a freelancing platform.
Yet the cold-start findings have broader implications because similar situations arise when experienced workers switch sectors and when people move to new countries seeking recognition for their credentials. "People spend their careers building reputations and expertise—why should all of that be lost during a transition?" Parker asks. "As career transitions become more common throughout the life course, especially into later life, organizations need systems that allow for portability—lest specialized knowledge be lost and workers' livelihoods impacted." The authors said they were aware of only one previous study that specifically examined late-career platform workers, but it concerned the driving platform Uber rather than freelancing for skilled professional work.
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