Old workers don’t take youth’s jobs: experts
Facts don’t support ‘ lump of labour’ theory that if workers overstay others won’t have jobs
CHICAGO — It’s an assertion that has been accepted as fact by droves of the unemployed: Older people remaining on the job later in life are stealing jobs from young people.
One problem, many economists say: It isn’t supported by a wisp of fact.
“We all cannot believe that we have been fighting this theory for more than 150 years,” said April Yanyuan Wu, a research economist at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, who co- authored a paper last year on the subject.
The theory Wu is referring to is known as “lump of labour,” and it has maintained traction in North America, particularly in a climate of high unemployment. The theory dates to 1851 and says if a group enters the labour market — or in this case, remains in it beyond their normal retirement date — others will be unable to find jobs or will have their hours cut.
It’s a line of thinking that relies on a simple premise: That there are a fixed number of jobs
There’s no evidence to support that increased employment by older people is going to hurt younger people in any way.
ALICIA MUNNELL DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR RETIREMENT RESEARCH AT BOSTON COLLEGE
available. In fact, most economists dispute this. When women entered the workforce, there weren’t fewer jobs for men. The economy simply expanded.
The same is true with older workers, they argue.
“There’s no evidence to support that increased employment by older people is going to hurt younger people in any way,” said Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research and the co- author with Wu of Are Aging Baby Boomers Squeezing
Young Workers Out of Jobs?
Still, the perception has persisted. It makes sense to many: If an older person doesn’t give up her position, a younger person doesn’t have a chance to take it.
But economists say the larger macroeconomic view gives a
clearer picture: Having older people active and productive benefits all age groups, they say, and spurs the creation of jobs. Munnell and Wu analyzed Current Population Survey data to test for any changes in employment among those under 55 when those 55 and
older worked in greater numbers. They found no evidence younger workers were losing work and in fact found the opposite: Greater employment, reduced unemployment and yielded higher wages.
Munnell said, outside of economists, the findings can be
hard for people to understand when they think only of their own workplace rather than the economy as a whole.
Still , many remain unconvinced.
James Galbraith, a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, doesn’t buy the comparison of older workers to women entering the workforce and says others’ arguments on older workers expanding the economy don’t make sense when there are so many jobless. If there was a surplus of jobs, there would be no problem with people working longer.
Melissa Quercia, 35, a controller for a small information technology company in Phoenix, said she sees signs of the generational job battle: jobs once taken by high schoolers now filled by seniors and college graduates who can’t find work anywhere, the resulting dearth of experience of younger applicants.
She doesn’t see economists’ arguments playing out. Older people staying on the job aren’t spurring new jobs, because companies aren’t investing in creating new positions, she said.