Labour Markets in an Ageing Europe

The population of the European Community will fall by 2% from its current level by the year 2025. Between 1960 and 1990, it grew by 17%. This contrast reflects the dramatic growth of the population of pensioners in the total population, and also the rapid ageing of the Community's working population. In this volume, based on a CEPR conference held in Munich in April 1992, leading economists in the field assess recent demographic and labour market developments in Western and Eastern Europe. They compare them with developments in the US and Japan, and assess the effects of ageing on European productivity, earnings, and human capital formation. Policies to improve the quantity and quality of the labour force are considered, including incentives for female labour participation, selective immigration policies, 'pronatalist' family policies, and improved human capital formation.