OECD
Ageing, Employment & Career Mobility
OECD research argues for better career choices and more opportunities to switch jobs in midlife, alongside career guidance, lifelong learning, internal mobility, redeployment, and age-inclusive employment practices.
WHERE SILVER CEILING EXTENDS THE QUESTION
What if structured career reassessment occurred while people were still successfully employed—before advancement stalls or displacement forces a decision?
Stanford Center on Longevity
The New Map of Life
Stanford’s framework argues that social institutions, norms, and policies need to be redesigned for much longer lives, with multiple flexible routes through learning, work, family, health, community, and later life.
WHERE SILVER CEILING EXTENDS THE QUESTION
If life transitions are expected, what developmental structures should help people carry experience forward from one professional stage into the next?
AARP
Future of Work & Employer Research
AARP’s employer resources emphasize age-inclusive cultures, multigenerational hiring, mixed-age teams, caregiving support, flexible retention, and the value of workers across the age spectrum.
WHERE SILVER CEILING EXTENDS THE QUESTION
How can organizations help experienced employees continue developing when traditional promotion structures narrow—rather than treating retention as simply keeping people in place?
Generation + OECD
The Midcareer Opportunity
Generation and OECD research documents the age-performance paradox: experienced workers may be underestimated in hiring despite employer reports that they often perform and learn as well as or better than younger peers.
WHERE SILVER CEILING EXTENDS THE QUESTION
What happens before the hiring barrier appears? Can continuous development, skill renewal, and career navigation reduce the likelihood that experienced workers become trapped between mastery and displacement?
The emerging research gap
What comes after mastery?
Across these bodies of work, we see strong support for lifelong learning, mobility, career guidance, age-inclusive employment, and more flexible life pathways. Silver Ceiling is investigating whether career development itself needs a more explicit developmental stage after mastery: reassessment, renewal, repositioning, and growth again.