Reconciling work, care and ageing: labour law structuring older women’s employment in Lithuania and Latvia

Population ageing is reshaping European labour markets and raises critical questions regarding the extent to which labour law supports longer working lives, particularly for groups experiencing cumulative disadvantage. Older women constitute a distinct demographic, as age-related health changes, long-term care responsibilities, and persistent gender inequalities shape their participation in the labour market. This article examines how labour law shapes older women’s continued engagement in paid work, using Lithuania and Latvia as comparative case studies. It adopts a comparative socio-legal methodology grounded in doctrinal analysis of labour law and relevant EU legal frameworks, with a focus on employment flexibility, workplace and task adaptation, and anti-discrimination protections. The findings demonstrate that, although both legal systems include instruments pertinent to extended working lives, these operate in a fragmented and indirect manner. Flexibility predominantly functions as an individualised adjustment mechanism, workplace adaptation remains largely reactive, and anti-discrimination law relies on formally neutral equality models that inadequately address the intersection of age, gender, and care-related disadvantage. Consequently, labour law primarily operates as a mechanism for individual adaptation rather than as a fully integrated framework capable of addressing the multiple inequalities associated with ageing labour markets.