work
Demography and the labor market interact in several important ways. First, demographic trends such as baby booms and busts, and changes in marriage rates and population health affect the amount and quality of labor available to produce goods and services in an economy. They also affect the solvency of major labor-market programs operated by governments, such as Social Security and Medicare. Second, developments in the labor market, such as improving work opportunities for women, have important consequences for population dynamics, through their effects on fertility, migration and other channels. Third, the demographics of workplaces (including, for example, their age structure and their representativeness of the population of potential hires) have important effects on the productivity and financial wellbeing of those institutions and on the well-being of their employees. This theme, co-ordinated by labor economist Peter Kuhn, is engaged in an interdisciplinary study of the above interrelationships in a variety of contexts, including a study of the determinants and effects of explicit, advertised gender discrimination by employers in a number of countries.
Area director: Peter Kuhn