Volume 13 - Article 7 | Pages 163–188  

Decomposing the change in labour force indicators over time

By Alexia Prskawetz, Barbara Zagaglia, Thomas Fent, Vegard Skirbekk

Abstract

In this paper we study changes in the size and the composition of the labour force in five OECD countries from 1983 through 2000. We apply a recent decomposition method to quantify the components of the change over time in the crude labour force rate and the mean age of the labour force. Our results show that the change in the crude labour force rate was dominated by the change in age-specific labour force participation rates. For the mean age of the labour force we find that for males the change in the age composition of the population predominately explains the overall change while the results for females are less clear-cut.

Author's Affiliation

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Family policies in the context of low fertility and social structure
Volume 29 - Article 37

The "Wedding-Ring": An agent-based marriage model based on social interaction
Volume 17 - Article 3

How many old people have ever lived?
Volume 36 - Article 54

Changes in economic activity: The role of age and education
Volume 36 - Article 40

Are daughters’ childbearing intentions related to their mothers’ socio-economic status?
Volume 35 - Article 21

The future size of religiously affiliated and unaffiliated populations
Volume 32 - Article 27

Is Buddhism the low fertility religion of Asia?
Volume 32 - Article 1

A cross-country comparison of math achievement at teen age and cognitive performance 40 years later
Volume 31 - Article 4

Economic support ratios and the demographic dividend in Europe
Volume 30 - Article 34

The determinants of internal mobility in Italy, 1995-2006: A comparison of Italians and resident foreigners
Volume 29 - Article 16

The reproductive value as part of the shadow price of population
Volume 24 - Article 28

Projection of populations by level of educational attainment, age, and sex for 120 countries for 2005-2050
Volume 22 - Article 15

Does fertility decrease household consumption?: An analysis of poverty dynamics and fertility in Indonesia
Volume 20 - Article 26

Austria: Persistent low fertility since the mid-1980s
Volume 19 - Article 12

Fertility trends by social status
Volume 18 - Article 5

Pathways to stepfamily formation in Europe: Results from the FFS
Volume 8 - Article 5

Fertility in second unions in Austria: Findings from the Austrian FFS
Volume 3 - Article 2

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Estimation of confidence intervals for decompositions and other complex demographic estimators
Volume 49 - Article 5    | Keywords: bootstrap, confidence interval, decomposition, demography, Monte-Carlo simulation, standard error

Age reporting for the oldest old in the Brazilian COVID-19 vaccination database: What can we learn from it?
Volume 48 - Article 28    | Keywords: age misreporting, Brazil, COVID-19, mortality crossover, oldest old, population aging, vaccinations

Delayed first births and completed fertility across the 1940–1969 birth cohorts
Volume 48 - Article 15    | Keywords: age at first birth, childlessness, completed cohort fertility, decomposition, fertility postponement, fertility recuperation, low-fertility

COVID-19 fatality in Germany: Demographic determinants of variation in case-fatality rates across and within German federal states during the first and second waves
Volume 45 - Article 45    | Keywords: case fatality rate, COVID-19, decomposition, demographic composition, Germany

Population aging caused by a rise in the sex ratio at birth
Volume 43 - Article 32    | Keywords: models, population aging, sex ratio at birth, stable population