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The ageing workforce? Separating fact from hype
James Doughney
Work and Economic Policy Research Unit, Victoria University
Contact Email: jamie.doughney
vu.edu.au
The central argument of this paper is that much of the recent hype about workforce ageing is either exaggerated or plainly wrong. Australia’s population is ageing, and the average age of the workforce has increased. However, closer analysis of labour force data reveals that the real causes of this higher average age are shifts in workforce composition and not population ageing per se. Increased labour force participation by women across all age cohorts is shown to be the major compositional change. The data also reveal that, in aggregate, early retirement is less influential than is commonly supposed. The received wisdom that Australia will experience a severe labour shortage in the future as an increasingly older workforce cascades towards early retirement is shown to be flawed. Once the evidence is considered objectively, blunt policy proposals such as raising the statutory pension and superannuation preservation ages lose their apparent urgency. Lurking behind such blunt prescriptions, however, is neo-liberal budgetary angst over welfare commitments to a larger proportion of the population who will be older than 65.
Paper
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Copyright © 2003 Social Policy Research Centre.
