Are firms willing to employ a greying and feminizing workforce?

V. Vandenberghe (Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) published in Labour Economics Volume 22 (June 2013)

Abstract

Are employers willing to employ more older individuals, in particular older women?

Higher employment among the older segments of the population will only materialise if firms are willing to employ them. Although several economists have started considering the demand side of the labour market for older individuals, few have considered its gender dimension properly; despite evidence that lifting the overall senior employment rate in the EU requires significantly raising that of women older than 50.

In this paper, we posit that labour demand and employability depend to a large extent on how the age/gender composition of the workforce affects firm’s profits. Using unique firm-level panel data we produce robust evidence on the causal effect of age/gender on productivity (value added per worker), total labour costs and gross profits. We take advantage of the panel structure of data and resort to first differences to deal with a potential time-invariant heterogeneity bias.

Moreover, inspired by recent developments in the production function estimation literature, we also address the risk of simultaneity bias (endogeneity of firm’s age-gender mix choices in the short run) by combining first differences with
i) the structural approach suggested by Ackerberg, Caves and Frazer (2006),
ii) alongside more traditional IV-GMM methods (Blundell and Bond, 1998)
where lagged values of labour inputs are used as instruments.

Results suggest no negative impact of rising shares of older men on firm’s gross profits, but a large negative effect of larger shares of older women. Another interesting result is that the vast and highly feminised services industry does not seem to offer working conditions that mitigate older women's productivity and employability disadvantage, on the contrary. This is not good news for older women's employability and calls for policy interventions in the Belgian private economy aimed at combating women's decline of productivity with age and/or better adapting labour costs to age-gender productivity profiles.

Highlights

► Are firms willing to employ more older individuals, in particular older women?
► We focus on how larger shares of older workers affects gross profits.
► We find limited negative impact of rising shares of older men.
► But a large negative effect of larger shares of older women.
► Services industry does not mitigate older women’s disadvantage.

JEL classifications: J11, J14, J21

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Continuing education and training models and strategies: an initial appraisal

a research report by Stephen Billett, Amanda Henderson, Sarojni Choy, Darryl Dymock, Ann Kelly, Ray Smith, Ian James, Fred Beven and Jason Lewis published by NCVER (National Centre for Vocational Education Research (Australia))

Summary

Changing work requirements, an ageing workforce and lengthening working lives requires an education and training system that goes beyond entry-level training and supports lifelong learning.

This report comes out of a three-year program of research that aims to investigate how best the tertiary education and training system might be organised to maintain the employability of Australian workers across their working lives.

Through an investigation of two different industry sectors – community services and health, and transport and logistics – an evaluation of a number of potential training models and strategies that might constitute a national approach to education and training was conducted.

Full report (requires free registration)

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Corporate social responsibility and aging workforces: an explorative study of corporate social responsibility implementation in small- and medium-sized enterprises

an article by Franz Josef Gellert and Frank Jan de Graaf (Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, the Netherlands) published in Business Ethics: A European Review Volume 21 Issue 4 (October 2012)

Abstract

Although critical differences exist between large companies and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), limited empirical research has been done on human resource (HR)-related corporate social responsibility (CSR).

In this paper we study aging workforce management (AWM) as a component of CSR.

Our study was conducted in the Netherlands through a randomly distributed online questionnaire. Managers and team leaders of 201 SMEs responded. The data were analyzed using multiple hierarchical regression analysis.

Our results are twofold: first, findings suggest that CSR policies in micro organizations with fewer than five employees seem to be strongly associated with AWM; and second, that companies with a focus on integration of older workers in daily activities do not perceive their actions as HR-related.

Using AWM as part of CSR helps to give insight into the role of the owner, company size and the nature of implicit CSR practices. Our study demonstrates that the use of AWM in CSR research can lead to valuable insights and therefore, our overarching research question is answered that AWM can be used when studying CSR.

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Too Much to Lose: Understanding and Supporting Britain’s Older Workers

a research paper by Matthew Tinsley published by Policy Exchange

Press release

The UK’s aging population is creating a significant need for people to work later in life. Too Much to Lose outlines that this, along with other trends, means that older workers will continue to play a much more significant role in the UK economy than ever before. This presents both opportunities and challenges. Today’s older workers are more educated, less likely to work in physically demanding roles and are less susceptible to health problems than ever before. However, the challenges facing older job-seekers are large: a job-seeker over the age of 50 is significantly less likely to return to work within the next year, and the cost of spells of unemployment to future wages is considerably greater than it is for younger or middle-aged workers.

This report argues that the back-to-work support provided to older workers fails to meet their needs. To tackle this, it sets out a plan for support that directly addresses the needs of older workers, at the same time as demanding that job-seekers are doing all they can to get back to work. As well as this we argue that there is a need to look at retirement differently, promoting more flexible working and supporting better communication between businesses and their employees. To facilitate these changes, the government’s approach must change. Up to now, the political focus has been centred on the problems of younger workers, and this has distracted attention away from the need to value and support older workers in the UK. This must change so that government focuses support on those with the greatest needs, rather than just targeting support by age.

If implemented, these recommendations will ensure that the older workforce continues to play a major role in the UK economy in the future. Failing to act now risks marginalising a whole generation of older workers and severely damaging both their welfare and the economy as a whole.



Full text (PDF 66pp)

With sincere apologies for having missed this when it was first published in June this year. I picked it up via a serendipitous series of links.
There are times when I love the internet.

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