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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Age and productivity capacity
— descriptions, causes and policy options | | Author(s) | Vegard Skirbekk |
| Journal title | Ageing Horizons, 2008, no 8, 2008 |
| Publisher | Oxford Institute of Ageing, Oxford, 2008 |
| Pages | pp 4-12 |
| Source | Download only from: http:/www.ageing.ox.ac.uk/ageinghorizons |
| Keywords | Work capacity ; Employment of older people ; Social policy ; Social surveys ; Literature reviews. |
| Annotation | Ways in which work performance differs over the life cycle are reviewed by describing and discussing findings from various approaches. These include: managers' evaluations; the quantity and quality of goods produced by workers of different ages; the performance of age-mixed teams; the extent to which the age distribution of employees depends on the type of work and how the age distribution changes due to technological change and business cycle shocks; analyses of employer-employee datasets; and descriptions of age-earnings profiles in settings where they could reflect performance and the output of researchers and artists over the life cycle. The causes of productivity variation by age are also considered, with a particular focus on experience and cognitive abilities. The findings suggest that productivity tends to increase during the initial years in the labour market before it stabilises and often declines towards the end of the working life. Productivity reductions at older ages are strongest in job tasks where problem solving, learning and speed are important, while for work tasks where experience and verbal abilities matter more, there is less or no reduction in productivity among older workers. Trends in the age-productivity relation are discussed in relation to changing work tasks and job requirements, combined with changes in the requirements of skills (decline in demand for physical strength, increase in the need to learn new skills). Policies that could be considered to raise productivity in older workers include on-the-job training, education and promotion of health. However, a later retirement could also raise incentives to update one's own skills and work harder at older ages (which may be achieved through pension reforms and wage liberalisation). Moreover, a better age mix in the workplace allowing older and younger individuals to benefit from their comparative advantages, is likely to improve overall productivity in ageing nations. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-080702201 A |
| Classmark | BIL: GC: TM2: 3F: 64A |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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