Is it Better to Work When We Are Older? An Empirical Comparison Between France and Great Britain

Kadija Charni

No 1640, AMSE Working Papers from Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France

Abstract: Classical literature uses the cross-sectional age-earnings profile to describe how the earnings evolve over the life cycle. Using a cohort analysis, I argue that this interpretation of age-earnings profile is not correct. I show that the cohort effects largely explain the decline observed at older ages. I illustrate this point by using a rotating panel data from France and a British longitudinal panel dataset for the period 1991 to 2007. I find no clear evidence that the earnings decline at older age, although the profiles are different between countries. Earnings for French workers rise linearly with age, with a further increase at the end of career, while it becomes flat for older workers in Great Britain. Overlapping cohorts provide an explanation of the observed decline of earnings for older workers in cross-sectional data. This suggests that cross-section age-earnings profile fails to represent the individual age-earnings profile.

Keywords: age-earnings profile; older workers; cohort analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J14 J24 J3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 62 pages
Date: 2016-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-eur and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: Is it Better to Work When We Are Older? An Empirical Comparison Between France and Great Britain (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aim:wpaimx:1640

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