Labor force projections up to 2053 for 26 EU countries, by age, sex, and highest level of educational attainment

Loichinger, Elke (2015) Labor force projections up to 2053 for 26 EU countries, by age, sex, and highest level of educational attainment. Demographic Research, 32 (15). pp. 443-486. ISSN 1435-9871

Preview

PDF Loichinger_2015_DR_Labor-force-projections.pdf Available under License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Germany (CC BY-NC 2.0 DE). Download (1MB)

Abstract

Background: One expected consequence of population aging in Europe is the shrinkage of the labor force. Most existing labor force projections allow only inferences about the size and age structure of the future labor force. Objective: In comparison to existing labor force projections, which disaggregate only by age and sex, these projections include information about the highest level of educational attainment (tertiary vs. non-tertiary education), so that an additional level of heterogeneity in labor force participation is considered. This heterogeneity enters the projection methodology through population projection data as well as labor force participation data, since both components are decomposed in the three dimensions of age, sex, and education. Based on data from the European Labor Force Survey (EU LFS), three scenarios were designed to project the economically active population for 26 EU countries up to 2053. Results: Adding the educational dimension to labor force projections discloses a significant shift towards tertiary education degrees between 2008 and 2053. This educational upgrading of the European labor force is not driven by developments in a few large countries but can be expected to take place in each of the 26 analyzed countries. Conclusions: A better educated but shrinking labor force is likely to be able to alleviate some of the anticipated economic consequences of population aging. The presented projections of education-specific labor supply can serve as inputs into forecasts of economic growth that include educational differentials in labor productivity. (author's abstract)

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Funding for this work was made possible by an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council, "Forecasting Societies Adaptive Capacities to Climate Change", grant agreement ERC-2008-AdG 230195-FutureSoc, and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) Z171-G11. Data Citation and disclaimer: This paper is based on data from Eurostat, EU Labour Force Survey, 2003 to 2008. The responsibility for all conclusions drawn from the data lies entirely with the author.
Keywords:	Europe / human capital / labor force projections
Divisions:	Forschungsinstitute > Human Capital and Development
Version of the Document:	Published
Variance from Published Version:	None
Depositing User:	Elena Simukovic
Date Deposited:	26 Apr 2016 11:40
Last Modified:	16 Aug 2020 08:53
Related URLs:	Publisher http://www.demographic-research.org/info...
FIDES Link:	https://bach.wu.ac.at/d/research/results/76872/
URI:	https://epub.wu.ac.at/id/eprint/5016

Actions

View Item

Downloads