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Title: Essays on the Labour Market Decisions of Older Workers
Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis
Publication Year: 2023
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Abstract: This dissertation comprises three essays examining the labour market decision-making of workers aged 50 and older in Canada and the United States. Older workers make up a large share of the labour force, so understanding their labour market decisions can inform public policy on public pension plans and public health care expenditure. In the first essay, I compare the labour market attachment of workers aged 50 to 69 in the United States and Canada from 1997 to 2019. I utilise the panel structure of the Canadian Labour Force Survey and the US Current Population Survey to create six-month and four-month panels for Canada and the United States, respectively. I use the survey questions on reasons for (1) working part-time and (2) being non-employed (unemployed or not-in-the-labour force) to determine how the reasons provided differ based on age and gender. I also examine the different types of labour force transitions within the panel and how it changes with age and gender. The descriptive results show that workers become less attached to the labour market as they age and have a preference for more short-term, flexible work arrangements. The increase in part-time employment is driven primarily by supply-side factors. Personal preference is the main reason in Canada, while retirement and/or social security earning limits is the main reason in the United States. For the workers marginally attached or not attached to the labour market, the dominant factor seems to be retirement or the ending of short-term jobs.
Url: https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/gq67jx55f
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Authors: Fairclough Campbell, Peter-Gay
Institution: McGill University
Department: Economics
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Pages: 1-168
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Aging and Retirement, Labor Force and Occupational Structure
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