EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The age dispersion of workers and firm productivity: a survey approach

Ross Guest (r.guest@griffith.edu.au) and Heather Stewart
Additional contact information
Heather Stewart: Griffith University

Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), 2011, vol. 14, issue 1, 59-75

Abstract: This paper investigates a tentative finding in recent literature that the age dispersion of workers matters for average firm productivity. The reason is not related to differences in the workers’ age specific productivity levels. Rather it is that workers of different ages are complementary in their effects on average firm productivity. The approach is an econometric study for Australia using the only publicly available matched employee-employer data which is extracted from the AWIRS 95 survey, along with data from a small online pilot survey conducted for the purposes of this study. The results support the tentative suggestion from prior studies, using somewhat different methodologies, that a more widely dispersed workforce by age is positive for productivity. This may have implications for human resource management of firms and for public policy, for example in relation to immigration.

Keywords: Labour and Demographic Economics; Labour Economics; Demographic Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J00 J01 J10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://ftprepec.drivehq.com/ozl/journl/downloads/AJLE141guest.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ozl:journl:v:14:y:2011:i:1:p:59-75

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE) from Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sandie Rawnsley (ajle@curtin.edu.au).

 
Page updated 2024-12-28
Handle: RePEc:ozl:journl:v:14:y:2011:i:1:p:59-75