eprintid: 14533 rev_number: 11 eprint_status: archive userid: 353 dir: disk0/00/01/45/33 datestamp: 2017-04-12 07:14:07 lastmod: 2022-01-26 10:42:55 status_changed: 2017-04-12 07:14:07 type: article metadata_visibility: show item_issues_count: 1 creators_name: Loichinger, E. creators_name: Prskawetz, A. creators_id: 8480 creators_id: 2025 title: Changes in economic activity: The role of age and education ispublished: pub divisions: prog_pop abstract: Background: Between 2000 and 2010, the labor force participation (LFP) of European men stayed mostly constant, whereas the participation of women continued to increase. Participation rates of people close to normal retirement ages rose almost universally. At the same time, the education composition shifted toward higher levels of educational attainment and education-specific differentials in economic activity persisted. Objective: The aim of the paper is to understand the extent to which developments of LFP rates between 2000 and 2010 in selected European countries can be explained by age-specific and education-specific changes in participation rates, as compared to changes in populations’ structural composition by age and education. Methods: We apply a decomposition methodology that allows us to disentangle changes in age- and education-specific LFP rates from changes in the age and educational structure of the population. Results: Our results show that LFP rates of adult women would have increased even more, had it not been for the downward pressure from the shift in the age composition toward older age groups with relatively lower levels of participation. This downward pressure also depressed male participation. The increase in participation among older people is mainly explained by participation increases among those with nontertiary education and is reinforced by a general shift toward higher levels of educational attainment. Contribution: Beyond changes in the age structure, we quantify the role of compositional changes by educational attainment. Our results indicate that labor supply may not decrease to the extent expected due to population aging, given educational expansion and education-specific patterns of economic activity. date: 2017-04-12 date_type: published publisher: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research id_number: 10.4054/DemRes.2017.36.40 creators_browse_id: 186 creators_browse_id: 100 full_text_status: public publication: Demographic Research volume: 36 pagerange: 1185-1208 refereed: TRUE issn: 1435-9871 projects: Ageing Europe: An application of National Transfer Accounts (NTA) for explaining and projecting trends in public (AGENTA, FP7 613247) coversheets_dirty: FALSE fp7_project: yes fp7_project_id: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/613247/EU/Ageing Europe: An application of National Transfer Accounts (NTA) for explaining and projecting trends in public finances/AGENTA fp7_type: info:eu-repo/semantics/article access_rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess citation: Loichinger, E. & Prskawetz, A. (2017). Changes in economic activity: The role of age and education. Demographic Research 36 1185-1208. 10.4054/DemRes.2017.36.40 . document_url: https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/14533/1/36-40.pdf