Did the Intergenerational Solidarity Pact Increase the Employment Rate of Older Workers in Belgium? A Macro-Econometric Evaluation

Muriel Dejemeppe, Catherine Smith and Bruno Van der Linden

No 9115, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In December 2005, the Belgian government adopted the law on the Intergenerational Solidarity Pact (ISP) aiming at increasing the employment rate of older workers. The main policies of the ISP consist in a pension bonus, reductions in employers' social security contributions and measures discouraging early retirement while encouraging working time reductions at the end of the career. We aim at evaluating the overall effectiveness of the ISP in rising the employment rate of older workers. To that purpose, we compare the actual evolution of the employment rate after the implementation of the policies to its predicted (counterfactual) evolution based on the estimation of a macroeconometric model in a period prior to the ISP. The results suggest a slight positive impact of the ISP on the employment rate of older workers but to the detriment of the younger workers. However, there is a lack of statistical power to draw firm conclusions on the overall effect of the ISP.

Keywords: aging; evaluation of labor market policies; macro-econometrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E32 H53 J21 J26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2015-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-lma and nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Forthcoming - published in: IZA Journal of Labor Policy, 2015, 4 (17)

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Journal Article: Did the Intergenerational Solidarity Pact increase the employment rate of older workers in Belgium? A macro-econometric evaluation (2015)
Working Paper: Did the Intergenerational Solidarity Pact increase the employment rate of older workers in Belgium? A macro-econometric evaluation (2015)
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