The background is the demographic changes with an increased proportion of elderly people who have led to the need for an extended working life and delayed retirement. Three reasons are often stated for this: guaranteeing a sustainable pension system, ensuring labour availability and efficient use of human capital held by older workers, and contributing to elderly welfare.

These goals require changed practices among employers and at workplaces, to meet and participate in the changes that take place at policy and individual level. Previously, such organisational activities have been called "age management" (age management), which, for example, can be about adapting work environment and work content, or changing norms around aging and retirement that prevail in the workplace. The problem is that there is no systematic knowledge of the organizational conditions and practices that promote and prevent delayed retirement and how such conditions are introduced within organisations.