The relationship between youth employment and older persons' employment in 20 OECD countries

• Date: 01 December 2017
• Author: Eun Jeong JI
• Published date: 01 December 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1564-913X.2014.00024.x

Special feature II

Older workers, job profiles and skills

Copyright © The author 2017

Journal compilation © International Labour Organization 2017

International Labour Review, Vol. 156 (2017), No. 3–4

* Associate research fellow, Korea Labor Force Development Institute for the Aged, Seoul,

email: jieun29@gmail.com. This article builds on the author’s earlier report (in Korean) for the

Korea Labor Force Development Institute for the Aged (see Ji, 2012a).

Responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles rests solely with their authors, and

publication does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO.

The relationship between youth employment

and older persons’ employment

in 20 OECD countries

Eun Jeong JI*

Abstract. Inspired by the “lump of labour” theory, a large number of OECD

countries have encouraged the expansion of early retirement policies in response

to rising unemployment since the 1970s. In reality, however, youth employment is

found to be positively correlated with older persons’ employment, although this is

simply the overall nding for all OECD countries because most studies estimate

average effects. Less is known about diversity in the relationship between youth

employment and the employment of older workers. In order to help ll the re-

search gap in this area, this study explores the heterogeneity of that relationship

across 20 OECD countries.

In the past few decades, most OECD countries have experienced jobless

growth, despite the increase in their GDP per capita. Older workers in

particular are more prone to losing their jobs; they also face a lack of job op-

portunities past retirement age and tend to have an unstable labour status.

Yet in most countries older jobseekers are under-represented in active labour

market policies (ALMPs), reecting the strong focus on tackling high youth

unemployment (OECD, 20 06a). A key factor in addressing these labour mar-

ket challenges would be to make it easier for older workers to remain in the

labour market by eliminating obstacles to their employment and extending

the compulsory retirement age. However, such policies are difcult to intro-

duce because one of the most serious problems facing OECD countries today

is youth unemployment. A large number of young people are nding it dif-

cult to enter the labour market. Policy-makers therefore focus on ensuring

equal distribution of jobs between age groups, taking into account the limited

resources available within countries.