Older people on the labor market: a forecast up to 2040 as a basis for economic policy measures

Thomas Horvath, Walter Hyll, Helmut Mahringer, Hedwig Lutz, Martin Spielauer

The project combines demographic projections with models of transitions between labour market conditions (unemployment, employment, and jobless positions) and their interactions with socio-demographic characteristics and health status. Demographic forecasts and statistical models will be combined to a micro-simulation model which, taking into account socio-demographic changes and the legal framework for retirement, will allow an estimation of the future development of older people on the labour market. Dynamic microsimulation allows to realistically depict individual life courses, while the results are at the same time consistent with demographic forecasts of population ageing, taking migration and the changing educational structure into account. The technical starting point is the open-source microsimulation platform MicroWELT (www.microwelt.eu) which is currently being developed in an international project under the direction of WIFO. In this project, the existing microsimulation infrastructure of WIFO will be expanded and refined to include specific processes concerning the problems of older people. Processes that are implemented in the simulation model mainly concern the labour market and health burdens, as well as changes in pension access regulations (concerning the earliest possible retirement age for early retirement or old-age pension). The mapping of realistic transitions and progressions requires a detailed econometric analysis that takes the relevant risk factors into account.

Publications:

  • Thomas Horvath, Walter Hyll, Helmut Mahringer, Hedwig Lutz, Martin Spielauer (2022) Ältere am Arbeitsmarkt: Eine Vorausschau bis 2040 als Grundlage für wirtschaftspolitische Maßnahmen - WIFO Study [PDF]


  • Organization Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO)

  • Funding: This 2020-2021 project is part of a project “Effects of demographic aging on older workers and the workforce structure of companies” funded by the Austrian Chamber of Labour, the Austrian Economic Chamber, the Austrian Chamber of Agriculture, and the Austrian Federation of Trade Unions