The global population is ageing. In the United Kingdom, for example, it is projected that people aged 65 and over will account for 23 per cent of the total population by 2035, with women continuing to outlive men (ONS 2019). This population change raises a number of social and economic challenges in a pattern shared across much of the Western world. The preferred solution to these challenges is to extend working lives and, in some cases, raise the state pension age to ease pressure on public spending. Gender, Ageing, and Extended Working Life applies a gendered lens to the issue of longer working lives, and in doing so, demonstrates that many of these neoliberal policies disproportionately jeopardize women.

Gender, Ageing, and Extended Working Life is part of the Ageing in a Global Context series by Policy Press in association with the British Society for Gerontology. The series attempts to re‐think key global questions in light of population change and shifting models of the welfare state. Gender, Ageing, and Extended Working Life certainly does this. By drawing on case studies from seven countries, the book makes a significant contribution towards the pressing need to study older citizen workers in their social, political and economic context. This is crucial context that has largely been shunned by policies to date on a cross‐national scale.

The book is organized into three parts and 11 chapters. Part 1 includes three chapters, written by the editors, which provide a helpful overview and analysis of the empirical, theoretical and policy context connected to extended working lives worldwide, but with a focus on the countries included in the book. Part 2 is made up of seven chapters that individually attend to seven OECD countries: Australia, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States. Part 3 comprises a conclusion chapter, discussing and drawing out the main themes of the text. Part 1 is particularly useful and provides a comprehensive account of the facts and figures around extended working lives, as well as a review of how older people have been conceptualized and represented by neoliberal policy. In doing so, it problematizes the normative assumptions on which policies are made, and sets the foundation for the country‐specific chapters that follow.

I do not have the space to dig into each chapter here, but I can say that each is presented in a consistent manner, written by expert authors based on each of the respective countries. The language is clear and accessible throughout. The authors respond to the same set of concerns, addressing employment, retirement and pension policy with an attendant focus on gender. The foundation of the book rests on the premise that governments see extended working lives as the solution to population welfare challenges, but that their solutions fail to account for gendered and classed contexts of ageing in place. The authors all draw on macro‐level data, which is presented in a way that is comprehensible to those new to extended working life policy. Reviewing the seven case study countries as a whole, it is clear that although distinctions do exist, and are expertly unraveled by the authors, a clear pattern unfolds. That is, that women's discrimination in the workforce, and the on‐going failure to adequately recognize social reproduction as work, continues to negatively affect older women both in work and in retirement.

Reading this book during the (hopefully) peak of the COVID‐19 crisis in the United Kingdom, one wonders what impact the crisis will have on extended working lives and the broader life experiences of older people in the future. The global economy has already taken a significant hit, and austerity is predicted to ensue for quite some time. The sheer intensity of the crisis, as we have experienced it, is likely to have a lasting impact on the way we all live, work and feel, but exactly what these impacts will be remain unknown. What we do know is; it was women who were more disadvantaged than men in the longer term following the 2008 global recession, due largely to job losses and pay‐freezes in the female‐dominated service sector, and reductions in part‐time contracts (Boyer et al. 2017). Mirroring this, Casaca and Perista, in chapter 7 of the book, draw attention to the hardship experienced by older men and women in Portugal following the 2008 recession (with Portugal being hit particularly hard by the economic downturn), when there simply were not the jobs available for older workers. As many countries enter a new phase of policy reform, this book provides crucial insight into how existing extended working life policies may or may not be fit for purpose.

With a focus on evidence‐informed analysis, Gender, Ageing and Extended Working Life will be of interest to academics, policy makers and non‐governmental organizations. It could also provide a valuable reading list resource for both undergraduate and postgraduate students as individual chapters could be read in isolation or used as case studies. It would not quench the thirst of those looking for qualitative stories or voices from the ground, but that is not what the editors set out to do. Instead, it succeeds in providing a macro‐level view of a previously veiled problem and sets a foundation for further research and debate.

全球人口正在老龄化。例如，在英国，预计到2035年，65岁及以上的人口将占总人口的23％，而女性的寿命将继续超过男性（ONS 2019）。这种人口变化以西方许多国家共同的模式提出了许多社会和经济挑战。解决这些挑战的首选方法是延长工作寿命，在某些情况下，还应提高州养老金的年龄，以减轻对公共支出的压力。性别，老龄化和延长的工作寿命将性别视角应用于更长的工作寿命问题，并且这样做表明，许多新自由主义政策严重危害了妇女。

性别，老龄化和延长的工作寿命是Policy Press与英国老年医学学会合作制定的“全球背景下的衰老”系列的一部分。该系列试图根据人口变化和福利国家模式的转变重新思考关键的全球性问题。性别，老龄化和延长的工作寿命确实可以做到这一点。通过借鉴七个国家的案例研究，该书对迫切需要研究老年人的社会，政治和经济背景做出了重大贡献。迄今为止，这一关键环境在很大程度上已被跨国政策所规避。

本书分为三个部分和11章。第1部分包括由编辑撰写的三章，它们对与延长工作寿命相关的经验，理论和政策背景进行了有益的概述和分析，但着重于本书中所包含的国家。第2部分由七个章节组成，分别涉及七个经合组织国家：澳大利亚，德国，爱尔兰，葡萄牙，瑞典，英国和美国。第3部分包括结论章节，讨论和拟定文本的主要主题。第一部分特别有用，它提供了有关延长工作寿命的事实和数据的全面介绍，以及对老年人如何被新自由主义政策概念化和代表的回顾。在这样做，

我在这里没有足够的空间来探讨每一章，但是我可以说，每一章都是以一致的方式呈现的，由专家作者根据各个国家/地区撰写。语言通俗易懂。作者回答了同样的问题，涉及就业，退休和退休金政策，并着重关注性别问题。该书的基础是前提，即各国政府将延长工作年限视为应对人口福利挑战的解决方案，但他们的解决方案无法解决现有的性别和分类老龄化背景。作者都利用宏观数据，这些数据以新的方式提供给那些延长工作寿命政策的人。回顾整个七个案例研究国家，很明显，尽管确实存在区别，经过作者的专业解说，清晰的格局得以展现。也就是说，妇女在劳动力中的歧视以及持续未能充分承认社会再生产为工作，继续对老年妇女的工作和退休产生不利影响。

在英国（希望）发生COVID-19危机的高峰期读过这本书，人们想知道这场危机将对今后延长工作寿命和老年人的更广泛生活体验产生什么影响。全球经济已经遭受重大打击，紧缩政策预计将持续相当长的一段时间。正如我们所经历的那样，危机的严重程度可能会对我们所有人的生活，工作和感觉方式产生持久的影响，但这些影响的确切含义仍然未知。我们所知道的是；在2008年全球经济衰退之后，长期而言，女性比男性更处于劣势，这主要是由于女性主导的服务业的工作流失和工资冻结以及兼职合同的减少（Boyer等人，2017）。）。与此对应的是，在本书第7章中，卡萨卡（Casaca）和佩里斯塔（Perista）提请注意在2008年经济衰退（葡萄牙受到经济不景气的打击尤为严重）之后，葡萄牙老年男女所经历的困境。老年工人可用的工作。随着许多国家进入政策改革的新阶段，这本书对现有的延长工作寿命政策可能适合或不适合目的提供了重要的见识。

着眼于循证分析，性别，老龄化和延长工作寿命将受到学者，决策者和非政府组织的关注。它也可以为本科生和研究生提供宝贵的阅读清单资源，因为单个章节可以单独阅读或用作案例研究。这不会消除那些从地面上寻找定性故事或声音的人们的渴望，但这不是编辑人员着手的。取而代之的是，它成功地提供了一个先前掩盖的问题的宏观视角，并为进一步的研究和辩论奠定了基础。