Extending working lives: How policies shape retirement and labour market participation of older workers

This study investigates how policies shape retirement and labour market participation of older workers and thus help extending working lives. It employs a time‐series–cross‐section analysis of the effects of macro‐level institutional pull, push and retention factors on effective retirement age and employment rate of older workers in 15 OECD countries from 1992 to 2010. The comparative approach reveals that public pension system rules that have been geared towards postponing retirement in many countries in past decades, indeed, are significant determinants of lengthening working lives. In particular, statutory retirement age and financial disincentives for early retirement proof important. Institutional effects differ by gender, though. Furthermore, the results point to the importance of social policies supporting labour market participation throughout the life‐course: social investment in human capital and public services clearly supports extending working lives

Eurooppalaiset eläkejärjestelmät tarkkailussa

Euroopan komissio on ollut jo vuosia huolissaan EU-maiden eläkejärjestelmien kestävyydestä. Vuosina 2011–2022 komissio jakoi maille yhteensä 425 suositusta eläketurvan kehittämiseksi. Valtaosa suosituksista on koskenut järjestelmien kestävyyttä, eli työllisyysastetta ja eläkemenojen suhdetta BKT:hen. Tulevaisuudessa niin eläketurvaa kuin siihen kohdistuvia suosituksia pitäisi tarkastella nykyistä kokonaisvaltaisemmin

Gender Inequalities in Early Career Trajectories and Parental Leaves: Evidence from a Nordic Welfare State

Parental leaves are, besides unemployment, the main reason for career breaks in early career. Despite the progress in recent decades towards more equal sharing of childcare between mothers and fathers, the labour market risk due to parenting remains mainly with women. In this article, we analyse how parental leaves relate to early career trajectories of young Finnish men and women. Using longitudinal register data for 2005–2016 from the Finnish Centre for Pensions, we perform a multi-trajectory analysis of the labour market attachment of a cohort born in 1980. Based on working days and earnings, we find five distinct career trajectories for both men and women, with the majority being well attached to the labour market by their mid-30s. While men and women on average have similar employment lengths, the gender gap in earnings is already 30 per cent in this early career phase. One of the causes may be found in the highly unequal division of family-related career breaks; the duration of mothers’ family-related leaves in this cohort was 13 times longer than fathers’ leave spells. Long home care leaves were particularly common among mothers with low education levels and weak attachment to the labour market. Efforts towards a more equal division of parental leaves are needed in order to combat gender inequalities that already emerge in early career and potentially cause life-long disadvantages for women’s careers, earnings and pensions