IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nbb/ecrart/y2014mjuneiip61-74.html

Employees: too expensive at 50? The age component in wage-setting

Author

Listed:
  • Y. Saks

    (National Bank of Belgium)

Abstract

As the population ages, the labour demand for older workers has become a major social and economic challenge. Wage profiles are linked to age in all European countries to a varying extent but the remuneration path is seen to be continuing to rise for the over-50s in Belgium, whereas it flattens out until the date of retirement in the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands and Germany. Wages keeping pace with increasing seniority is not economically problematic if this reflects a higher level of productivity. As labour productivity cannot be observed directly, an assessment is made of how age variation among companies’ employees affects firms’ output. The econometric results for Belgium show that a higher percentage of employees aged 50 and older generally tends to weigh on corporate profitability. This does not have to be the case : their productivity can be boosted as a result of more training efforts, measures that aim at adjusting workplaces, including ergonomics, and a better organisation of work.

Suggested Citation

  • Y. Saks, 2014. "Employees: too expensive at 50? The age component in wage-setting," Economic Review, National Bank of Belgium, issue i, pages 61-74, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbb:ecrart:y:2014:m:june:i:i:p:61-74
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nbb.be/en/articles/employees-too-expensive-50-age-component-wage-setting
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Saint-Paul, Gilles, 2009. "Does the welfare state make older workers unemployable?," CEPR Discussion Papers 7490, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Göbel, Christian & Zwick, Thomas, 2013. "Are personnel measures effective in increasing productivity of old workers?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 80-93.
    3. Mazzonna, Fabrizio & Peracchi, Franco, 2012. "Ageing, cognitive abilities and retirement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 691-710.
    4. Patrick Aubert & Bruno Crépon, 2003. "La productivité des salariés âgés : une tentative d'estimation," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 368(1), pages 95-119.
    5. Alessandra Cataldi & Stephan Kampelmann & François Rycx, 2012. "Does it pay to be productive? The case of age groups," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 33(3), pages 264-283, June.
    6. Hellerstein, Judith K & Neumark, David & Troske, Kenneth R, 1999. "Wages, Productivity, and Worker Characteristics: Evidence from Plant-Level Production Functions and Wage Equations," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(3), pages 409-446, July.
    7. V. Vandenberghe & F. Waltenberg & M. Rigo, 2013. "Ageing and employability. Evidence from Belgian firm-level data," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 111-136, August.
    8. V. Vandenberghe, 2011. "Boosting the Employment Rate of Older Men and Women," De Economist, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 159-191, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Huang, Yi-Hou & Liang, Woan-lih & Truong, Quang-Thai & Wang, Yanzhi, 2022. "No new tricks for old dogs? Old directors and innovation performance," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    2. Rycx, François & Saks, Yves & Tojerow, Ilan, 2016. "Misalignment of Productivity and Wages across Regions? Evidence from Belgian Matched Panel Data," IZA Discussion Papers 10336, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrea Albanese & Bart Cockx & Yannick Thuy, 2020. "Working time reductions at the end of the career: Do they prolong the time spent in employment?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 99-141, July.
    2. Andrea Albanese & Bart Cockx, 2015. "Permanent Wage Cost Subsidies For Older Workers. An Effective Tool For Increasing Working Time And Postponing Early Retirement?," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 15/902, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    3. Vandenberghe, V., 2013. "Are firms willing to employ a greying and feminizing workforce?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 30-46.
    4. Lara Lebedinski & Vincent Vandenberghe, 2014. "Assessing education’s contribution to productivity using firm-level evidence," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(8), pages 1116-1139, October.
    5. Pekka Ilmakunnas & Mika Maliranta, 2016. "How does the age structure of worker flows affect firm performance?," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 43-62, August.
    6. V. Vandenberghe & F. Waltenberg & M. Rigo, 2013. "Ageing and employability. Evidence from Belgian firm-level data," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 111-136, August.
    7. Rycx, François & Saks, Yves & Tojerow, Ilan, 2016. "Misalignment of Productivity and Wages across Regions? Evidence from Belgian Matched Panel Data," IZA Discussion Papers 10336, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Maciej Lis, 2017. "Productivity based selection to retirement: Evidence from EU-SILC," IBS Working Papers 02/2017, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    9. François Rycx & Yves Saks & Ilan Tojerow, 2015. "Does Education Raise Productivity and Wages Equally? The Moderating Roles of Age, Gender and Industry," Working Paper Research 281, National Bank of Belgium.
    10. Andrea Garnero & Stephan Kampelmann & François Rycx, 2014. "Part-Time Work, Wages, and Productivity," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(3), pages 926-954, July.
    11. Vincent Vandenberghe, 2011. "Introduction to De ECONOMIST Special Issue on “Ageing Workforces”," De Economist, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 89-94, June.
    12. Muriel Dejemeppe & Catherine Smith & Bruno der Linden, 2015. "Did the Intergenerational Solidarity Pact increase the employment rate of older workers in Belgium? A macro-econometric evaluation," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-23, December.
    13. Pierre-Philippe Combes & Gilles Duranton & Laurent Gobillon & Sébastien Roux, 2010. "Estimating Agglomeration Economies with History, Geology, and Worker Effects," NBER Chapters, in: Agglomeration Economics, pages 15-66, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Bernhard Mahlberg & Inga Freund & Alexia Prskawetz, 2013. "Ageing, productivity and wages in Austria: sector level evidence," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 561-584, November.
    15. Thierry Lallemand & François Rycx, 2009. "Are Older Workers Harmful for Firm Productivity?," De Economist, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 273-292, September.
    16. Marie Leclair & Sébastien Roux, 2007. "Productivité relative et utilisation des emplois de courte durée dans les entreprises," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 405(1), pages 47-76.
    17. Katharina Frosch, 2009. "Do only new brooms sweep clean? A review on workforce age and innovation," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2009-005, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    18. Vandenberghe Vincent, 2021. "Differentiating retirement age to compensate for health differences," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 11(1), pages 1-34, May.
    19. Bloom, David E. & Sousa-Poza, Alfonso, 2013. "Ageing and productivity," FZID Discussion Papers 63-2012, University of Hohenheim, Center for Research on Innovation and Services (FZID).
    20. Kampelmann, Stephan & Mahy, Benoît & Rycx, François & Vermeylen, Guillaume, 2016. "Who Is Your Perfect Match? Educational Norms, Educational Mismatch and Firm Profitability," IZA Discussion Papers 10399, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbb:ecrart:y:2014:m:june:i:i:p:61-74. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bnbgvbe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.