Korea’s low youth employment rate has negative consequences for the young people concerned and the economy as a whole. Raising youth employment is a priority, particularly as Korea faces the most rapid population ageing among OECD countries. Low youth employment is due to a mismatch between...

This paper uses household survey (Sakernas) data from the 1996 and 2004 to estimate the determinants of earnings in Indonesia. The Indonesian labour market is segmented, with a majority of workers engaged in informal-sector occupations, and earnings data are available only for formal-sector...

While employment growth has accelerated, allowing unemployment to fall significantly since 2005, many low-skilled workers are still unemployed and the duration of unemployment spells is still long. The introduction of an in-work benefit for workers in low-income households, subject to a minimum...

Over the past decade, the share of jobs not controlled by the state has increased considerably, whilst employment in agriculture has declined, against the backdrop of ongoing urbanisation. Over 200 million people have been drawn into urban areas through official or unofficial migration, despite...

This paper formalises the analysis of the employment-productivity trade-off by extending the framework developed by Gordon (1997) to account for labour heterogeneity. The extent of the trade-off is determined by the extent of the adjustment of capital to effective labour and by the changes in...

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...

With almost 50 per cent of the working age population not working, improving labour market performance represents an essential and daunting challenge for Poland. While some of today’s joblessness is cyclical in nature, most of it appears to be structural. This paper argues that to increase...

Women have contributed a great deal to Ireland's economic growth, including by joining the labour force in large numbers. The rise in female participation since 1990 has been amongst the strongest in the OECD, but from a low base. Female participation rates remain below the OECD average for all...

Maintaining high participation and employment in the face of the recent recession and a rapidly ageing population are major challenges for policy makers in Finland. The recession of the early 1990s showed that high unemployment can leave long–lasting scars on labour markets, while rapid ageing...

Informality often arises from disincentives associated with high taxes and a restrictive regulatory framework in both labour and product markets. About 20% of the Chilean population aged 15 years and above and working at least 20 hours per week did not have a formal labour contract in 2006. At...