IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hce/wpaper/038.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Men Slow Down Faster than Women?

Author

Listed:
  • Wolfgang Maennig

    (Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg)

  • Michael Stobernack

    (Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences, Fachhochschule Brandenburg, Department of Business Administration)

Abstract

This paper is the first test of differences between age-related reductions in the performance of men and women. The assumption that men age faster is obvious, because men's life expectancy is generally lower. In addition to other studies on age-related reduction in human performance, this paper examines the data taken from competitions on rowing machines, which have been standardized worldwide and which are hardly affected by weather or temperature. A third innovation is that this study looks for any potential ageing processes specific to gender and physique. Fourth, fractional polynomials have been added to the testing methodology. Contrary to intuition, we find evidence that women are affected by faster age-related reductions in performance

Suggested Citation

  • Wolfgang Maennig & Michael Stobernack, 2010. "Do Men Slow Down Faster than Women?," Working Papers 038, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
    • Handle: RePEc:hce:wpaper:038
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hced.uni-hamburg.de/WorkingPapers/HCED-038.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2010
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David A. Wise, 1989. "The Economics of Aging," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number wise89-1, May.
    2. Fair, Ray C, 1994. "How Fast Do Old Men Slow Down?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(1), pages 103-118, February.
    3. Julia I. Lane & John C. Haltiwanger & James Spletzer, 1999. "Productivity Differences across Employers: The Roles of Employer Size, Age, and Human Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 94-98, May.
    4. Ray Fair, 2004. "Estimated Age Effects in Athletic Events and Chess," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2481, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Aug 2007.
    5. Milton Harris & Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "A Theory of Wage Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(3), pages 315-333.
    6. Laurence J. Kotlikoff & David A. Wise, 1989. "Employee Retirement and a Firm's Pension Plan," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Aging, pages 279-334, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Patrick Royston & Douglas G. Altman, 1994. "Regression Using Fractional Polynomials of Continuous Covariates: Parsimonious Parametric Modelling," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 43(3), pages 429-453, September.
    8. H. M. Boot, 1995. "How skilled were Lancashire cotton factory workers in 1833?," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 48(2), pages 283-303, May.
    9. Hutchens, Robert M, 1989. "Seniority, Wages and Productivity: A Turbulent Decade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 49-64, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Men last longer
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2010-09-27 19:59:00

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Franziska K. Kruse & Wolfgang Maennig, 2017. "The future development of world records," Working Papers 061, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
    2. Franziska K. Kruse & Wolfgang Maennig, 2019. "Yellow Cards and Suspension by Choice: Determinants and Asymmetries," Working Papers 064, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
    3. Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt & Wolfgang Maennig & Felix J. Richter, 2017. "Zoning in reunified Berlin," Working Papers 059, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
    4. Maennig, Wolfgang & Wilhelm, Stefan, 2023. "News and noise in crime politics: The role of announcements and risk attitudes," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    5. Wolfgang Maennig, 2023. "Centralization in National High-Performance Sports Systems: Reasons, Processes, Dimensions, Characteristics, and Open Questions," Working Papers 073, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
    6. Wolfgang Maennig, 2017. "Public Referenda and Public Opinion on Olympic Games," Working Papers 057, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
    7. Steffen Q. Mueller, 2020. "Pre- and within-season attendance forecasting in Major League Baseball: a random forest approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(41), pages 4512-4528, September.
    8. Wolfgang Maennig & Stefan Wilhelm, 2023. "Crime Prevention Effects of Data Retention Policies," Working Papers 074, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
    9. Wolfgang Maennig, 2017. "Governance in Sports Organizations," Working Papers 060, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
    10. Steffen Q. Mueller & Patrick Ring & Maria Schmidt, 2019. "Forecasting economic decisions under risk: The predictive importance of choice-process data," Working Papers 066, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
    11. Wolfgang Maennig, 2017. "Major Sports Events: Economic Impact," Working Papers 058, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.

    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. Börsch-Supan, Axel & Weiss, Matthias, 2016. "Productivity and age: Evidence from work teams at the assembly line," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 30-42.
    2. Vegard Skirbekk, 2004. "Age and Individual Productivity: A Literature Survey," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 2(1), pages 133-154.
    3. Schneider, Lutz, 2007. "Mit 55 zum alten Eisen? : eine Analyse des Alterseinflusses auf die Produktivität anhand des LIAB (Dispensable at 55? : analyzing the impact of age on productivity using the LIAB dataset)," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 40(1), pages 77-97.
    4. Schneider, Lutz, 2007. "Mit 55 zum alten Eisen? : eine Analyse des Alterseinflusses auf die Produktivität anhand des LIAB (Dispensable at 55? : analyzing the impact of age on productivity using the LIAB dataset)," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 40(1), pages 77-97.
    5. Schneider, Lutz, 2006. "Sind ältere Beschäftigte weniger produktiv? Eine empirische Analyse anhand des LIAB," IWH Discussion Papers 13/2006, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    6. Flabbi, Luca & Ichino, Andrea, 2001. "Productivity, seniority and wages: new evidence from personnel data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 359-387, June.
    7. Ray C. Fair & Edward H. Kaplan, 2017. "Estimating Aging Effects in Running Events," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 3000, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    8. Benoit Dostie, 2011. "Wages, Productivity and Aging," De Economist, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 139-158, June.
    9. Fahn, Matthias, 2019. "Reciprocity in Dynamic Employment Relationships," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 198, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    10. Paul Hek & Daniel Vuuren, 2011. "Are older workers overpaid? A literature review," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(4), pages 436-460, August.
    11. Ana Cardoso & Paulo Guimarães & José Varejão, 2011. "Are Older Workers Worthy of Their Pay? An Empirical Investigation of Age-Productivity and Age-Wage Nexuses," De Economist, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 95-111, June.
    12. Schneider, Lutz, 2007. "Mit 55 zum alten Eisen? : eine Analyse des Alterseinflusses auf die Produktivität anhand des LIAB (Dispensable at 55? : analyzing the impact of age on productivity using the LIAB dataset)," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 40(1), pages 77-97.
    13. Pierre-Carl Michaud & Susann Rohwedder, 2008. "Forecasting Labor Force Participation and Economic Resources of the Early Baby Boomers," Working Papers wp175, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    14. Joachim Ragnitz & Stefan Eichler & Beate Henschel & Harald Lehmann & Carsten Pohl & Lutz Schneider & Helmut Seitz & Marcel Thum, 2007. "Die demographische Entwicklung in Ostdeutschland : Gutachten im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Technologie," ifo Dresden Studien, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 41.
    15. Chen, Yu-Fu & Zoega, Gylfi, 2010. "Life-Cycle, Effort and Academic Deadwood," SIRE Discussion Papers 2010-28, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    16. Lumsdaine, Robin L. & Stock, James H. & Wise, David A., 1990. "Efficient windows and labor force reduction," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 131-159, November.
    17. Fair Ray C, 2008. "Estimated Age Effects in Baseball," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-41, January.
    18. Castellucci, Fabrizio & Padula, Mario & Pica, Giovanni, 2011. "The age-productivity gradient: Evidence from a sample of F1 drivers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 464-473, August.
    19. John G. Sessions & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2014. "Tenure, Wage Profiles and Monitoring," Research in Labor Economics, in: New Analyses of Worker Well-Being, volume 38, pages 105-162, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    20. Michael D. Hurd, 1993. "The Effect of Labor Market Rigidities on the Labor Force Behavior of Older Workers," NBER Working Papers 4462, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labor productivity; ageing economics; economics of gender;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Economic Logic blog

    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:hce:wpaper:038. 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: Wolfgang Maennig (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ihhamde.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.