Ageing, productivity and wages in Austria

Bernhard Mahlberg, Inga Freund, Jesus Crespo Cuaresma and Alexia Fürnkranz-Prskawetz

No 03/2011, ECON WPS - Working Papers in Economic Theory and Policy from TU Wien, Institute of Statistics and Mathematical Methods in Economics, Economics Research Unit

Abstract: The current demographic developments and their consequences for workforce ageing challenge the sustainability of intergenerational transfers and economic growth. A shrinking share of the young workforce will have to support a growing share of elderly, non-working people. Therefore, the productivity of the workforce is central to a sustainable economic future. In order to study the relation between the age structure of employees and labour productivity at the firm level, we use a new matched employer-employee panel data set for Austrian firms spanning the period 2002- 2005. These data allow us to account simultaneously for socio-demographic characteristics of the employees as well as firm heterogeneity to explain labour productivity. Our results clearly show that the age-productivity as well as age-wage profile have a strong industry-specific component. In the service sector, an ageing workforce does not necessarily imply a negative productivity effect. Moreover, we cannot find any evidence for an overpayment of elderly employees.

Keywords: age-productivity profile; age-wage profile; employer-employee data; sector affiliation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J14 J24 J82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Journal Article: Ageing, productivity and wages in Austria (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:tuweco:032011

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