Aging and the labor market

This thesis is a collection of three essays analyzing the interplay between aging and the labor market. The first chapter demonstrates that differential treatment by age exists in labor markets and explores different possible explanations for this differential treatment. As the baby boom cohort reaches retirement age, demographic pressures on public programs such as social security may cause policy makers to cut benefits and encourage work at later ages. This chapter reports on a labor market experiment to determine the hiring conditions for older women in entry-level jobs in Boston, MA and St. Petersburg, FL. I find differential interviewing by age for these jobs. A younger worker is more than 40% more likely to be offered an interview than an older worker. I find no evidence to support taste-based discrimination as a reason for this differential and some evidence to support statistical discrimination. The second chapter examines more closely one of the possible reason for this differential treatment. Older workers may cost employers more in terms of potential age discrimination lawsuits. I study the effects of state and federal age discrimination laws between 1968 and 1991. Prior to the enforcement of the federal law, state laws had little effect on older workers, suggesting that firms either knew little about these laws or did not see them as a threat. After the enforcement of the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) in 1979, white male workers over the age of 50 in states with age discrimination laws work fewer weeks per year and are less likely to be hired or separated from their jobs, but are more likely to be retired (perhaps involuntarily).

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Economics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Lahey, Joanna

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Dora L. Costa.

• Economics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/32405

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/32405