Did the Intergenerational Solidarity Pact increase the employment rate of the elderly in Belgium? A macro-econometric evaluation

Catherine Smith

No 2014009, LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES from Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)

Abstract: In December 2005, the Belgian government adopted the law on the Intergenerational Solidarity Pact (ISP) with the objective to increase the employment rate of the elderly. In order to meet that objective, several active ageing policies and reforms were taken. The aim of this paper is to investigate the overall effectiveness of the ISP in rising the elderly employment rate by gender. Two methods are used. Both rely on a macro-econometric model which explains the evolution of the elderly employment rate by the economic conditions. The first method uses forecasts of the macro-econometric model as an indicator of the value the employment rate would have taken in the absence of the policies. The second method tests for the presence of structural breaks after the introduction of the main policies of the ISP. The results of the first method suggest a positive impact of the policies on elderly employment rate which is slightly larger for men, and a negative impact on younger men's employment rate, suggesting a substitution effect. These effects are however too small to be statistically significant. Using the second method, no structural break is found.

JEL-codes: E32 H53 J21 J26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44
Date: 2014-04-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-lma and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://sites.uclouvain.be/econ/DP/IRES/2014009.pdf (application/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:ctl:louvir:2014009

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES from Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES) Place Montesquieu 3, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Virginie LEBLANC ().