Immigration could offer one way for Denmark to expand its labour supply, thereby lowering the dependency ratio, at least for some time, and easing the task of ensuring fiscal sustainability. However, these beneficial effects are obtained only if immigrants are in work. Yet a significant...

This paper examines the determinants of female labour force participation in OECD countries, including a number of policy instruments such as the tax treatment of second earners (relative to single individuals), childcare subsidies, child benefits, paid maternity and parental leaves, and tax...

After nearly fifteen years of transition, the countries of Central Europe have entered the European Union on 1 May 2004. For the four countries that are members of the OECD (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovak Republic), accession follows multiyear efforts of economic stabilisation and...

Over the past decade, labour market outcomes have improved in India, with net employment rising markedly for the economy as a whole. However, these gains have arisen primarily in the unorganized and informal sectors of the economy, where productivity and wages are generally much lower than in...

Chile’s labour force participation is low by comparison with most countries in the OECD area, especially among females and youths. In the case of women, labour supply has risen steadily over time for prime-age and older individuals, against a background of relative stability for men. With...

This paper examines the impact of old-age pension systems and other social transfer programmes on the retirement decision of older males in OECD countries. For each of the 55-59, 60-64 and 65+ age groups, a new panel dataset (22 OECD countries over 1969-1999 or shorter periods in some cases) of...

This paper reviews Iceland’s performance in skills accumulation against the backdrop of a rapidly changing economic environment and discusses directions for further improvements. Since the late 1990s, the government has considerably raised expenditure on education, which is now among the...

In the face of the substantial ageing of population expected to occur in OECD countries over coming decades, policies that boost labour-force participation attract considerable interest. There remain large cross-country divergences in participation rates that are largely accounted for by...