Senior training in France

Forty is the old age of youth, but fifty is the youth of old age.

Victor Hugo

On January 1, 2023, France had a population of 68 million. By 2030, one French person in three will be over 60. For the first time, the over-65s will outnumber the under-15s(INSEE). According to the central projection scenario, they will number 22.9 million in 2040 and 26.4 million in 2070 (+56% between 2017 and 2070). What's more, their share of the total population is set to rise, from 25% in 2017 to 32% in 2040 and 35% in 2070. The proportion of older people will increase even more. In 2070, 18% of the population would be aged 75 or over (13.7 million people), compared with 9% in 2017.

This ageing process has consequences not only for work and employment, but also for vocational training. With the recent pension reform, 1/3 of one's working life remains to be completed after the age of 50. The challenge of vocational training for senior citizens is becoming ever more acute. The term "seniors" has been replaced by the word "sénior"(Trincaz 2015), which evokes rejuvenation.

Who are seniors and what are their specific characteristics?

The notion of "senior"(Flamand 2023) needs to be clarified in terms of perceived age, legal age and the particular practices and capacities associated with it (e.g. mental strength). These dimensions refer to distinct notions.

Seniority, "maturescence" and aging are terms that describe different aspects of the aging process:

• Seniority is a term that describes the state of a person who has reached a certain age, ranging from 45 to 65 or more, depending on the source.
  
  
• Maturation, on the other hand, is a term that describes the period of life when a person reaches a level of emotional and psychological maturity that makes them mentally sound.
  
  
• Finally, aging is a natural process that occurs when the body undergoes age-related physical and biological changes.

It is important to note that these terms are not interchangeable, and that they describe different aspects of the process of the passage of time(Jeandel, 2005). Furthermore, taken in isolation, age conditions are powerless to describe an individual's physical and motivational state. The biopsychosocial model (Lemaire, Bherer 2005) sees ageing not as a simple decline "but as an adaptive evolution resulting from the interaction between the subject and the environment throughout life".

In relation to learning, time produces its own patina of experience, but also of wear and tear, both psychological and physiological, which we need to characterize in terms of working conditions, arduousness, sustainability and work intensification. Experiential approaches (on-the-job training, the "look-alike" method, narratives of experience, explanatory interviews, appreciative inquiry, reasoned autobiography, etc.) and ergonomic approaches to work are interesting responses.

What devices are specifically designed for seniors?

Seniors have many years of experience, habits and references, and can therefore draw on a range of actions to take account of their particular trajectories. Today, when device-based reasoning predominates, the question to be asked is how to adapt training to seniors rather than seniors to training. In addition, they have developed transferable skills that it would be interesting to capture before retirement, such as the practice of legacy circles, a Quebec-style side-step.

Seniors have other points of reference in terms of projects, orientation and training for the latter part of their careers, as their relationship to time and financial constraints are different from those of a young worker. The specific role of experience validation, or of schemes such as Cléa , could be a good option. The link between seniors and technology is often perceived as a weakness, but to their credit, many of them have already adapted to computers, cell phones and a variety of screens. They may well have meta knowledge and new approaches to adapting to new tools and practices such as artificial intelligence.

Photo : mikdam / DepositPhotos

Sources

Flamand, J. (2023). Fin de carrière des seniors: quelles spécificités selon les métiers? La note d'analyse de France Stratégie, 121, 1-12 . https://www.cairn.info/revue--2023-6-page-1.htm.

Formation professionnelle dans la fonction publique | Service-Public.fr

INSEE https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/6687000?sommaire=6686521

Older people: "prime adapt", home help... New services to support the elderly by 2030(cnews.fr)

Jeandel, C. (2005). Les différents parcours du vieillissement. Les Tribunes de la santé, no<(sup> 7), 25-35. https://doi. org/10.3917/seve.007.35

Vieillesse et vieillissement | Le blog de la gérontologie(gerontologie-blog.com)

Lemaire, P., & Bherer, L. (2005). Psychology of aging: a cognitive perspective. De Boeck Supérieur. https://www.decitre.fr/livres/psychologie-du-vieillissement-9782804149536.html

Brunet, C. & Rieucau, G. (2019). The role of information on employees' demand for and participation in training: lessons from the Defis survey. Revue économique, 70, 751-785. https://doi. org/10.3917/reco.705.0751

Trincaz, J. (2015). Personne âgée: quelles représentations sociales? Hier et aujourd'hui. Expertise collective INSERM, Activité physique et prévention des chutes chez les personnes âgées, 467-477. http://ipubli. inserm.fr/bitstream/handle/10608/6807/?sequence=9

Volkoff, S., & Léonard, D. (2019). Quel travail pour les "seniors"? An interview with Serge Volkoff by Dimitri Léonard. Pyramides. Revue du Centre d'études et de recherches en administration publique, (31-32), 223-236.

Cercle de legs - For people over 50 http://cercledelegs.org/