Are Aging Baby Boomers Squeezing Young Workers Out of Jobs?
Many are arguing that by choosing to continue working rather than retiring, older workers are taking away jobs from younger people hoping to enter the workforce. But a new study shows this isn't the case.
It's an argument coming up more and more as unemployment rates, especially for the young, remain high all over the world. But according to a recent study by Alicia Munnell and April Yanyuan Wu of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, older workers in the U.S. aren't taking away young people's jobs at all.
Their main findings were:
- Individuals need to work longer for a secure retirement, but critics argue that more work by older people reduces jobs for the young.
- An exhaustive analysis, however, covering the 1977-2011 period found absolutely no evidence of such “crowding out.”
- This finding holds for both men and women, for groups with different educational levels, and even during the Great Recession.
Download the full study brief here.
