Labour-Market Outcomes of Older Workers in the Netherlands: Measuring Job Prospects Using the Occupational Age Structure

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. The standard human capital model predicts that, as a result of human capital obsolescence, mobility becomes more costly when workers become older. We measure and interpret how changing job opportunities across 96 occupations affect different age and skill groups. Older workers end up in shrinking occupations, in occupations with a lower share of high-skilled workers, in occupations facing a higher threat of offshoring tasks abroad, more focus on routine-intensive tasks and less rewarding job content. This process is not only observed for the oldest group of workers, but for workers aged 40 and above. Observing older workers in declining occupations is to a large extent a market outcome, but declining job opportunities in terms of less satisfying working conditions and job tasks and content could potentially raise incentives to retire early.JEL Classification: J24, J60

Cities, Tasks, and Skills

“…The connectivity of job tasks of young workers has a stronger impact on employment growth than the connectivity of job tasks of older workers. This is in line with the findings that older workers perform more “declining” job tasks (Autor and Dorn, ; Bosch and Ter Weel, ). We conclude that the estimated effects of connectivity on employment growth seem to hold for different subsamples of workers.…”

Unemployment: The Great Recession and Beyond

“…This is consistent with the findings of Krueger et al (2014) for the United States and could possibly be an indication of long-run problems for those on the margins of the labour market and of structural problems in terms of lower future participation rates. Finally, the composition of long-term unemployment reveals that older workers are more often long-term unemployed than others, a feature also addressed in Bosch and Ter Weel (2013). About 40 % of the long-term unemployed workers are over age 50, which is almost twice as much as the EU average.…”

Trends in labour force participation of older men: Examining the influence of policy reforms, normative change and deindustrialization in the Netherlands, 1992–2009

“…We will therefore test if the trends in labour force participation can be partly attributed to changing policies as well as to changing social norms. Deindustrialization has not yet received much attention in the literature, but may well have important consequences for the late career of Dutch workers, as they are typically overrepresented in the industry sector (Bosch and Ter Weel, 2013). 6 In sum, we pose the following research question: (1) To what extent can we characterize trends in labour force participation of Dutch older men between 1992 and 2009 in terms of policy reforms, normative change and deindustrialization?…”