La tasa de actividad en España: resistencia cíclica, determinantes y perspectivas futuras

The cyclical resilience of the labour force has been one of the most notable features of the Spanish labour market during the latest economic crisis, despite the depth and duration of the recession, and in contrast to its performance in previous recessionary periods. The behaviour of labour supply has been driven by the favourable trend of the aggregate participation rate. Thus, this paper firstly analyses the cyclical performance of the participation rate over time using data from the Labour Force Survey for different demographic groups (by sex, nationality, age and educational attainment). The analysis reveals that the lower cyclical sensitivity during the latest downturn was driven by the stronger relative performance of labour force participation by Spanish women, highly educated workers and middle-aged and older people. In the second part of the paper, we estimate an empirical relationship between the participation rate, broken down into sex and nationality, and some of its main determinants identified in the literature. The ensuing estimation results will serve as a basis for conducting a projection exercise for the aggregate participation rate over a 10-year horizon. Overall, our results show that factors such as educational attainment, the fertility rate, the minimum wage, the pension system or the unemployment insurance system all prove relevant for labour participation decisions by individuals. The future course of these variables can help mitigate the negative impact on the labour supply arising from the expected population ageing in Spain.