Do older workers really reduce firm productivity?

Bokwon Lee, Joowoong Park and Jae-Suk Yang
Additional contact information
Bokwon Lee: Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Republic of Korea; Ministry of Economy and Finance, Korea
Jae-Suk Yang: Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Republic of Korea

The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 2018, vol. 29, issue 4, 521-542

Abstract: In this article, we examine the effect of workforce ageing on company productivity, using an analysis based on Korean firms. We found that an increase in the ratio of workers aged over 50 years to total workers had a negative effect on value added per worker, which was consistent with the findings of most previous studies based on European data. However, the results of the analysis, including various classifications such as size, industry and several financial conditions, revealed that an increase in the ratio of older workers had positive effects on value added per worker in large manufacturing firms under risky or growing conditions. As the productivity of older workers may vary, future research may determine under what conditions – size, industry, region and financial conditions – older workers contribute positively to productivity. Firms with financial troubles or those planning to downsize should be cautious about laying off older workers as an approach to improving organisational performance because these workers contribute positively to productivity under certain conditions. JEL Codes: J24, J54, N3

Keywords: Ageing; financial conditions; firm size; human capital; productivity; Republic of Korea (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1035304618811008 (text/html)

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:sae:ecolab:v:29:y:2018:i:4:p:521-542

DOI: 10.1177/1035304618811008

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Economic and Labour Relations Review
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().