Poster #23 - Determinants of Labor Force Participation in Older Adults: A Cross-Country Comparison

• In Event: Saturday Poster Luncheon

Abstract

Background/Purpose: This study aims to identify the factors influencing labor force participation among older adults from a cross-national perspective. It focuses on how social security expenditure and labor market flexibility affect older men and women differently. Since the restructuring of the welfare state, the employment of older adults has become a policy priority across countries. This is due to pension reforms aimed at ensuring fiscal sustainability and the shift from state responsibility to individual accountability. While generous social security systems are often seen as a barrier to late-life employment, this study examines whether they actually reduce labor force participation among older adults or if national labor market conditions (e.g., labor market flexibility), play a bigger role. Furthermore, this study explores the employment status vary by socioeconomic class, in order to understand if it reflects broader patterns of structural inequality in aging societies.

Methods: We analyzed the data from the 7th wave of the World Values Survey (WVS), a cross-national survey conducted between 2017 to 2022, and are merged to construct a pooled dataset comprising 3,297 respondents aged 55 to 65. To examine the multilevel determinants of labor force participation among older adults, a Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was applied. The independent variables at the individual level include gender, age, household size, marital status, educational level, subjective value of work, subjective socioeconomic status, spouse’s employment status, and subjective health status. The country level variables include national unemployment rate, public social security expenditure in proportion to GDP, the part-time employment rate, and GDP per capita. In addition, the analysis is conducted using three distinct models – for the overall respondents, for male, and for women – to account for gender differences in employment experiences.

Results: The study finds that subjective socioeconomic status is statistically significant in relation to employment among older workers. Individuals with a higher socioeconomic status (B = 0.02, p < 0.001) and those with a higher educational level (B = 0.03, p < 0.001) are more likely to be employed in the overall sample. Moreover, labor force participation among male is more influenced by the availability of part-time employment opportunities (B=-0.01, p<0.001) than the public social security expenditure. On the other hand, public social security expenditure shows a significant positive association with women’s employment (B = 0.009, p < 0.05), suggesting that social security spending may play a meaningful role in late-life employment for women.

Implications: The study figures out labor market structure for older adults which means that opportunities for late-life employment may not be evenly accessible. Moreover, the effects of social security spending on employment differ by gender. From a cross-national comparative perspective, given that flexible employment options encourage work among older men, while generous social protection benefits are more influential for older women, policy efforts should be tailored accordingly to reflect these gender-specific approach. Promoting late-life employment requires expanding flexible, age-appropriate job opportunities for men while ensuring adequate and accessible social protection for women, accompanied by policy reforms that encourage work for older adults.

Authors

• Ockju Hyeon, Ewha Womans University
  Presenting Author

• Youngmin Cho, Ewha Womans University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author