Effects of ageing: Potential employment gaps and the possible role of migration

European Review

Volumn 16, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 517-527

  Berkhout, Ernest ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGE STRUCTURE; AGING POPULATION; CONFERENCE PROCEEDING; ELDERLY POPULATION; EMPLOYMENT; LABOR MARKET; LABOR MIGRATION; LABOR PRODUCTIVITY; LABOR SUPPLY; POPULATION MIGRATION;

EID: 56049088277     PISSN: 10627987     EISSN: 14740575     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S106279870800032X     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (12)

1. The projection database is officially called 'EUROPOP2004': EUROstat POpulation Projections 2004-based and originally consisted of four scenarios; the three basic projections 'baseline', 'low growth' and 'high growth' plus a hypothetical no-migration variant. Here, I mainly use the baseline projection because this projection is built on the most realistic assumptions given current knowledge. The high-growth and low-growth variants indicate what will happen if all assumptions work together in population growth or population decrease. I use the no-migration variant to indicate the implicit effects of migration in the baseline projection.
2. In detailed calculations it will become clear that this assumption does not matter for the relative size of the potential employment gap, if we assume that the size of demand is proportional to the size of the population.
3. I call it a potential gap because in this calculation we make some strong implicit assumptions.
4. These numbers are only illustrative; for realistic assumptions, at least national estimates should be used, and one should calculate demand growth per capita. Productivity growth should be analysed, preferably on a sectoral level, and corrected for inflation. Sectoral labour shifts (let us say from industry to services) will influence labour productivity (in this case to lower productivity).
5. See statline.cbs.nl: 'External migration by country of birth, sex, age and marital status'.
6. S. Drinkwater, J. Eade and M. Garapich (2006) Poles Apart? EU Enlargement and the Labour Market Outcomes of Immigrants in the UK. IZA Discussion Paper 2410.
7. G. Hughes (2007) EU enlargement, migration from Central and Eastern Europe and their effect on migration policy in Ireland. Paper presented at LoWER Workshop on Migration, 20-21 April 2007.
8. E. Wadensjö (2007) Migration to Sweden from the New EU Member States. IZA Discussion Paper 3190, Bonn.
9. L. M. Kahn (2004) Immigration, skills and the labor market. Journal of Population Economics, 17, 501-534.
10. Unfortunately these data only reflect 'old migrants' because they refer to the year 2000 for most countries.
11. The definition of skill level in the OECD/Eurostat data that I use is much less detailed than it is in Kahn's study. I have only three skill levels (low, middle and high) on a national level while Kahn used a continuous distribution on an individual level. More important is that OECD and Eurostat use the 'highest completed level of education' as a proxy for skills whereas Kahn uses a complex instrument measuring applied cognitive skills (International Adult Literacy Survey).
12. OECD (2006) International Migration Outlook 2006 (Paris: OECD).