Is Innovative Firm Behavior Correlated with Age and Gender Composition of the Workforce? Evidence from a New Type of Data for German Enterprises

Christian Pfeifer () and Joachim Wagner ()

No 7050, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This empirical research note documents the relationship between composition of a firm's workforce (with a special focus on age and gender) and its performance with respect to innovative activities (outlays and employment in research and development (R&D)) for a large representative sample of enterprises from manufacturing industries in Germany using unique newly available data. We find that firms with a higher share of older workers have significantly lower proportions of R&D outlays in total revenues and of R&D employment in total employment, whereas firms with a higher share of female employment seem to be more active in R&D.

Keywords: R&D; firm performance; gender; Germany; ageing; innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 D24 J21 J24 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2012-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-cse, nep-dem, nep-eff, nep-hrm, nep-ino, nep-knm, nep-lab and nep-sbm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Journal for Labour Market Research, 2014, 47 (3), 223-231

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Related works:
Journal Article: Is innovative firm behavior correlated with age and gender composition of the workforce?: evidence from a new type of data for German enterprises (2014)
Journal Article: Is innovative firm behavior correlated with age and gender composition of the workforce? Evidence from a new type of data for German enterprises (2014)
Working Paper: Is innovative firm behavior correlated with age and gender composition of the workforce? Evidence from a new type of data for German enterprises (2012)
Working Paper: Is innovative firm behavior correlated with age and gender composition of the workforce? Evidence from a new type of data for German enterprises (2012)
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