Abstract
Over the last two decades of the twentieth century, the aggregate supply of labour was relatively stable. Simultaneously, we observed dynamic changes in economic activity in most age and sex groups. They were characterized by a substantial increase of economic activity of women and a considerable drop of activity of the oldest and youngest workers. Motherhood still depressed female labour force participation, but in ever more countries the development of childcare services and the evolution of social habits facilitated relatively high economic activity of women. For many of the countries under study, the female participation pattern resembled the male one, with only slightly lower levels of age-specific participation rates. The drastic decline of labour force participation in the oldest age groups was related to the development of social security systems and the possibility of early retirement. The decline of economic activity of young people can be attributed to technological progress, which, by creating demand for specific skills and knowledge, increased the value of education and delayed participation in the labour force.
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- 1.
http://laborsta.ilo.org/ – status as of mid-March 2004
- 2.
Census data.
- 3.
This applies to both 5-year groups included in this range. In this chapter, labour force participation rates are analysed only for 5-year age groups. For simplicity, wider age groups are sometimes used. They should be understood as 5-year age groups included in a given range.
- 4.
The 1985 data for Bulgaria come from the census.
- 5.
Data for Central and Eastern European countries are not available for this period. Hence, the range of variation might have been wider for all countries in the study.
- 6.
Definitional issues impacting the labour force participation statistics were mentioned in Sect. 9.1.
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Saczuk, K. (2013). Historical Trends in Labour Force Participation in Europe, 1985–2002. In: Kupiszewski, M. (eds) International Migration and the Future of Populations and Labour in Europe. The Springer Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis, vol 32. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8948-9_9
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