Research Landscape on Hidden Workers in Aging Populations: Bibliometric Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript, which addresses the critical issue of hidden workers in aging populations. The following comments are intended to further enhance the clarity, depth, and impact of the manuscript. I appreciate the considerable effort the authors have already put into this research and hope that my suggestions will contribute to the refinement of an important work.

First, I've noticed several instances where the language could be much improved for sake of clarity and readability.

Here are a few examples:

1. "At the intersection of the retirement age and changing patterns of later working lives, the vulnerable subgroup of the older populations in are facing distinct challenges related to seeking work [5,6]."

This sentence appears to be missing a word or phrase after "populations in".

2. "Nonetheless, due to inequitable resources and opportunities, access to the job market, re-employment, re-skilling, long-term work absence, work disability, and unemployment in the aging population exhibit social gradients [1]."

This sentence seems incomplete and could be clarified.

3. "Others explored the tendency among older workers, particularly those belonging to racial minorities, is to exit the workforce before reaching the age of 65."

4. "Despite the widespread acceptance of work-related inequities in aging populations, knowledge exchange and building have been limited."

And there are more instances like these…

 

Second, the paper mentions the purpose of the research but does not explicitly state the research questions early on. A clearly articulated research question is crucial as it guides the readers through the narrative of the study, helping them understand what the study seeks to achieve and why it matters. This should be framed in a way that also highlights what new knowledge the study aims to provide and why this is important.

Third, the paper make note of the significant issues surrounding hidden workers within aging populations but does not explicitly connect these issues to existing theoretical frameworks. To strengthen the manuscript, I recommend integrating and discussing relevant theoretical frameworks early in the paper. This could include theories related to labor economics, gerontology, or social exclusion, depending on which aspects are most relevant to your study. By linking the study's findings to established theories, I believe you can position better the research within the existing body of knowledge, illustrating how their work contributes new insights or extends current understanding.

Fourth, the manuscript states that the search strategy involved specific queries, but these queries are not actually listed or detailed in the text. I recommend including the exact search queries used in the study within the Materials and Methods section

Fifth, the inclusion of data on document types and the annual volume of productivity, while thorough, does not appear to be directly tied to the paper's stated objectives. It's crucial for the authors to explain why these metrics are relevant. For example, the predominance of articles might be expected, but without context or analysis regarding how this influences the field, the information seems somewhat superfluous. I recommend that the authors provide a rationale for including these metrics in the results.

Similarly, the division of publications by Web of Science categories and the identification of top research universities, while informative, are presented without clear linkage to the research questions or implications.

Lastly, you've highlighted some valuable insights in the discussion section, such as the scattered nature of publication outlets and the dominant role of US institutions in this research area. These points are crucial as they contribute to understanding the landscape of research dissemination and collaboration within the field. However, these insights seem to be overshadowed by less impactful data, such as the sheer volume of publications over the years. I recommend prioritizing and expanding on the discussion of these significant insights to ensure they are not lost among less critical information.

 

Some minor comments about language usage:

1. Consider adding a brief definition of "wicked problem" or rephrasing to a more commonly understood term

2. The sentence "Furthermore, passivity, which is prevalent among older adults, is negatively associated with various health outcomes" introduces 'passivity' abruptly without a clear link to previous discussion or clarification of how it relates to the paper's core topics.

3. The statement, "Factors such as low education level and male gender have been identified as significant risks for hearing disability among older persons," appears disconnected from the central theme of the paper, which focuses on hidden workers and employment challenges in aging populations. If hearing disability is an important factor affecting employment among older adults, please provide a clear linkage to how this impacts their employment status or interacts with the challenges faced by hidden workers. Alternatively, if this detail is not central to the paper’s arguments, consider omitting it or integrating it into a section that discusses broader health impacts on employability in older adults.

Also,

4. The statement about the "ultimate objective of this paper" found in the Materials and Methods section seems to be placed inappropriately. Such statements are generally expected in the introduction where they can help frame the research goals and objectives more clearly for the reader. The Materials and Methods section should focus primarily on the procedural details, tools, and approaches used in the study.

 

The suggestions provided aim to enhance the presentation and clarity of the current findings, ensuring that the significance of the work is fully realized and accessible to a wider audience. I look forward to seeing the further development of this paper, which has the potential to make a meaningful contribution.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Requires some improvements.

Author Response

Response to reviewer 1

Thank you very much for reviewing this article on hidden workers in aging populations. The comments were very helpful and significantly improved the quality of the manuscript. Here are detailed revisions for the points highlighted by the reviewer.

1. English proofreading needs to be done.

• The revision and extensive proofreading have been done to improve the manuscript.

2. Second, the paper mentions the purpose of the research but does not explicitly state the research questions early on. A clearly articulated research question is crucial as it guides the readers through the narrative of the study, helping them understand what the study seeks to achieve and why it matters.This should be framed in a way that also highlights what new knowledge the study aims to provide and why this is important.

• Authors agree with the reviewer. The research question and the rationale are now explicitly stated in the introduction to guide the narrative and flow of the study In lines 88-95.

3. Third, the paper makes note of the significant issues surrounding hidden workers within aging populations but does not explicitly connect these issues to existing theoretical frameworks.To strengthen the manuscript, I recommend integrating and discussing relevant theoretical frameworks early in the paper. This could include theories related to labor economics, gerontology, or social exclusion, depending on which aspects are most relevant to your study. By linking the study's findings to established theories, I believe you can position better the research within the existing body of knowledge, illustrating how their work contributes new insights or extends current understanding.

• Theoretical concepts from various disciplines were introduced early on in the introduction (lines 49-87) along with a diagram. The theoretical link to the results is also added in lines 406-423.

4. Fourth, the manuscript states that the search strategy involved specific queries, but these queries are not actually listed or detailed in the text.I recommend including the exact search queries used in the study within the Materials and Methods section

• The search terms table have been included in the Methods section (table 1).

5. Fifth, the inclusion of data on document types and the annual volume of productivity, while thorough, does not appear to be directly tied to the paper's stated objectives. It's crucial for the authors to explain why these metrics are relevant. For example, the predominance of articles might be expected, but without context or analysis regarding how this influences the field, the information seems somewhat superfluous.I recommend that the authors provide a rationale for including these metrics in the results.

• Authors agree with the reviewer. The metrics that convey minor importance (document types, productivity) have been removed to make the strong connection with the objective to highlight the significance of uneven research landscape.

6. Similarly, the division of publications by Web of Science categories and the identification of top research universities, while informative, are presented without clear linkage to the research questions or implications.

• Authors agree with the reviewer. The Top research universities table have been removed from the manuscript Further explanation was added to the division of publications by WoS make a clear linkage to illustrate disciplinary concentration (lines 208-210).

7. Lastly, you've highlighted some valuable insights in the discussion section, such as the scattered nature of publication outlets and the dominant role of US institutions in this research area. These points are crucial as they contribute to understanding the landscape of research dissemination and collaboration within the field. However, these insights seem to be overshadowed by less impactful data, such as the sheer volume of publications over the years.I recommend prioritizing and expanding on the discussion of these significant insights to ensure they are not lost among less critical information.

• Authors agree with the reviewer. The descriptive nature of the analysis has been integrated under the new heading, ‘historical development’. The tables of minor importance have been removed from the manuscript and will be supplied in the supplementary document. The discussion section has been elaborated to discuss the uneven nature of the research landscape in three dimensions: keyword concentration, disciplinary dominance and geographic concentration (lines 425-454).

Some minor comments about language usage:

1. Consider adding a brief definition of "wicked problem" or rephrasing to a more commonly understood term

The word has been replaced.

2. The sentence "Furthermore, passivity, which is prevalent among older adults, is negatively associated with various health outcomes" introduces 'passivity' abruptly without a clear link to previous discussion or clarification of how it relates to the paper's core topics.

The sentence has been removed.

3. The statement, "Factors such as low education level and male gender have been identified as significant risks for hearing disability among older persons," appears disconnected from the central theme of the paper, which focuses on hidden workers and employment challenges in aging populations. If hearing disability is an important factor affecting employment among older adults, please provide a clear linkage to how this impacts their employment status or interacts with the challenges faced by hidden workers. Alternatively, if this detail is not central to the paper’s arguments, consider omitting it or integrating it into a section that discusses broader health impacts on employability in older adults.

The sentence has been removed.

4. The statement about the "ultimate objective of this paper" found in the Materials and Methods section seems to be placed inappropriately. Such statements are generally expected in the introduction where they can help frame the research goals and objectives more clearly for the reader. The Materials and Methods section should focus primarily on the procedural details, tools, and approaches used in the study.

The sentence has been moved.

Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions to improve the manuscript.  

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The subject of the paper is in the coverage area characteristic to the profile of the journal and is in the current area of interest of experts, researchers, and even public policy makers.

The paper’s title is clear and understandable, and the paper’s abstract is of the optimal length (reflect the content).

Keywords are appropriately chosen but JEL codes are not included.

There is a well-defined structure of the paragraphs of the paper, coherent and correlated with the objectives of the paper.

The tools and methods are chosen according the bibliometric analysis.

Assumptions are clearly stated and logically linked to the scient metric analysis.

The results are presented clearly, providing a significant contribution to understanding the concept of the “Hidden workers” in scientific literature. The presentation of the results is based on the analysis of the research model.

The work is original and makes a contribution through the proposed theme and the case study on three vulnerable groups of aging workers. The study focuses on unemployed, the underemployed and the discouraged workers among the older population, reflected that the nature of their problems goes beyond economics (even they are a financially vulnerable group), making the research topic relevant and important.

I do not find in the paper work the clear answer for the third question mentioned in introduction “What are the implications for future research?” However, I appreciate that the authors introduce the point 4 of the paper "discussion" in order to give some ideas that could be an answer to this question. I appreciate that the limitations of the research are mentioned.

The conclusions are related to the research objectives and supported by the results obtained.

The list of references is a weak point for the paper. The indicated bibliography is suitable for understanding the concepts of unemployment, underemployment, problems of the elderly population in finding a job, etc. It is actually a bibliography related to labour economics theory. A more consistent bibliography in relation to the bibliometric analysis would be suitable for the work. (E.g. KESSLER, M., M. Bibliographic coupling between scientific papers. In: American Documentation, nr.14 (1), 1963, p. 10-25. KRUSKAL, Joseph B. & WISH, Myron. Multidimensional scalling. Serie: Quantitative applications in the social sciences. London: Sage Publications, 1978., and others). I suggest to authors to review.

The language used is accessible and appropriate, only small adjustments can be made to improve the flow of the text. The writing style is fine.

Congratulations on the authors! 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The language used is accessible and appropriate, only small adjustments can be made to improve the flow of the text. The writing style is fine.

Author Response

Response to reviewer 2

Thank you very much for reviewing this article on hidden workers in aging populations. The comments were very helpful and significantly improved the quality of the manuscript. Here is a summary response of revisions for the points highlighted by the reviewer.

1. I do not find in the paper work the clear answer for the third question mentioned in introduction “What are the implications for future research?” However, I appreciate that the authors introduce the point 4 of the paper "discussion" in order to give some ideas that could be an answer to this question. I appreciate that the limitations of the research are mentioned.

• We agree with the reviewer. The section on future research potential has been added in lines 455-473.

2. The list of references is a weak point for the paper. The indicated bibliography is suitable for understanding the concepts of unemployment, underemployment, problems of the elderly population in finding a job, etc. It is actually a bibliography related to labour economics theory. A more consistent bibliography in relation to the bibliometric analysis would be suitable for the work. (E.g. KESSLER, M., M. Bibliographic coupling between scientific papers. In: American Documentation, nr.14 (1), 1963, p. 10-25. KRUSKAL, Joseph B. & WISH, Myron. Multidimensional scalling. Serie: Quantitative applications in the social sciences. London: Sage Publications, 1978., and others). I suggest to authors to review.

• We agree with the reviewer. Below paragraph has been added to provide methodological contexts along with the references that the reviewer suggested in lines 141-148.

Bibliographic coupling networks have been widely used since Kessler introduced the concept in 1963 to describe the segmentation of research and to look the development of the emerging areas of scientific landscape (Kessler, 1963). Small's (1973) first introduction of co-citation heralded the use of analytical citation tools and various techniques for citation analysis (Liu, 1993) In addition, co-authorship and collaboration networks have been employed in bibliometric analysis to explore the social structure of scientific works, based on multidimensional scaling approach (Kruskal and Wish 1978) which has been applied to report structural features of social space.

 

Kessler, M. M. (1963). Bibliographic coupling between scientific papers. American Documentation, 14(1), 10-25. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.5090140103

Small, H. (1973). Co-citation in the scientific literature: a new measure of relationship between two documents. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 24(4), 265-269. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.4630240406

Liu, M.-X. (1993). The complexities of citation practice: a review of citation studies. Journal of Documentation, 49(4), 370-408. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026920

Kruskal, Joseph. B. 1964a.  "Multidimensional Scaling by Optimizing Goodness of Fit to a Nonmetric Hypothesis." Psychometrika 29(1): 1-27.

 

Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions to improve the manuscript.  

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The revised version of the manuscript shows substantial improvements in terms of its content. Thank you for addressing my earlier comments, your effort to improve the paper is appreciated.

The main concern remains the quality of writing. Currently, the paper is quite difficult to read.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Here are my comments regarding the quality of English in the revised manuscript. These are just few suggestions, however, the document as a whole could benefit from an extensive editing.

Clarity and structure:

1. The statement in the abstract, "There needs to be an intersectoral approach to address the hardships," appears to be a conclusion. Typically, the abstract’s background section should not include conclusions. It would be more appropriate to introduce this concept and discuss its implications in the main body of the paper where it can be developed more fully.

2. The phrase, "Their access to labor market and health conditions have long been," conflates two distinct topics that each warrant separate discussion..

Formatting:

There are minor formatting errors, such as double spaces after periods (e.g., line 51) and missing spaces between words (e.g., line 38).

Unclear phrases:

1. "The growing trend of aging across the globe has resulted in an upsurge in the workforce profile." This phrase is vague — specifically, the term "upsurge in the workforce profile" is unclear.

2. "More researchers have been investigating retirement which created a distinctive subdiscipline where retirement is viewed as a social structure." This sentence could be simplified for clarity.

Complex and confusing statements:

1. "It is evident that while various disciplines portray complex challenges associated with hidden workers, they are not separate phenomena for hidden workers." This sentence is overly complicated.

2. Regarding the number of papers: "There were 2831 papers on hidden workers in the aging population across various databases," requires a specification of the date, as this number is likely to change.

Overall, some phrases in the document are overly complicated, making the text difficult to read and understand. Simplifying the language and breaking long sentences into shorter, clearer statements can significantly enhance the readability and impact of your findings.

Author Response

Thank you very much for reviewing this manuscript. The comments were very helpful and significantly improved the quality of the manuscript. The entire manuscript has been proofread and corrected by a native speaker. All the complex sentences have been broken down to simple, clearer sentences to precisely convey the meaning. Here are detailed revisions for the points highlighted by the reviewer.

Clarity and structure:

1. The statement in the abstract, "There needs to be an intersectoral approach to address the hardships," appears to be a conclusion. Typically, the abstract’s background section should not include conclusions. It would be more appropriate to introduce this concept and discuss its implications in the main body of the paper where it can be developed more fully.-->  Agree with the author. The sentence has been removed from abstract.

1. The phrase, "Their access to labor market and health conditions have long been," conflates two distinct topics that each warrant separate discussion..

--> Agree with the reviewer. The sentence has been changed to

Their access to the labor market has long been recognized as a critical social problem which may lead to public health concerns such as mental health and limited healthcare access.

Formatting:

There are minor formatting errors, such as double spaces after periods (e.g., line 51) and missing spaces between words (e.g., line 38).

--> Agree with the author. The minor formatting errors were corrected.

 

Unclear phrases:

1. "The growing trend of aging across the globe has resulted in an upsurge in the workforce profile." This phrase is vague — specifically, the term "upsurge in the workforce profile" is unclear.

--> Agree with the reviewer. The sentence has been changed to 

The growing trend of aging worldwide has resulted in an aging workforce.

1. "More researchers have been investigating retirement which created a distinctive subdiscipline where retirement is viewed as a social structure." This sentence could be simplified for clarity.

--> Agree with the author. The unclear phrases have been corrected for clarification.

A group of researchers has created a distinctive sub-discipline on ‘retirement’ in which retirement is viewed as a social structure, transitioning process, and dynamic experience [8].

Complex and confusing statements:

1. "It is evident that while various disciplines portray complex challenges associated with hidden workers, they are not separate phenomena for hidden workers." This sentence is overly complicated.

--> Agree with the author. The unclear phrases have been corrected for clarification.

It is evident that while various disciplines portray complex challenges associated with hidden workers, it would be beneficial to understand those challenges in a comprehensive manner. Because hidden workers may be exposed to most of the risks and challenges identified by different disciplines and quite possibly experience those struggles altogether at the same time.

1. Regarding the number of papers: "There were 2831 papers on hidden workers in the aging population across various databases," requires a specification of the date, as this number is likely to change.

--> Agree with the author. The date of the data collection has been added.

 

Overall, some phrases in the document are overly complicated, making the text difficult to read and understand. Simplifying the language and breaking long sentences into shorter, clearer statements can significantly enhance the readability and impact of your findings.

--> Agree with the reviewer. The complex sentences are broken down into simple clearer sentences to enhance the readability.