Ageing And Employment Policies Denmark 2015 Working Better With Age

Given the ageing challenges, there is an increasing pressure in OECD countries to promote longer working lives. This report provides an overview of policy initiatives implemented in Denmark over the past decade.

Given the ageing challenges, there is an increasing pressure in OECD countries to promote longer working lives. This report provides an overview of policy initiatives implemented in Denmark over the past decade. Even if these recent reforms are well in line with the recommendations of the 2005 OECD report Ageing and Employment Policies: Denmark, the focus has been put mainly on the supply side. The aim of this new report is to identify what more could be done to promote longer working lives. As a first step, the government should assess closely the implementation process to ensure that the expected outcomes of the reforms are achieved. More broadly, the strategy should act simultaneously in three areas by: i) strengthening incentives to carry on working; ii) tackling employment barriers on the side of employers; and iii) improving the employability of older workers.

This report provides an overview of ageing and employment policy iniatives implemented over the past decade in the Netherlands and identifies areas where more should be done.

Currently, Japan has the highest old-age dependency ratio of all OECD countries, with a ratio in 2017 of over 50 persons aged 65 and above for every 100 persons aged 20 to 64. This ratio is projected to rise to 79 per hundred in 2050. The rapid population ageing in Japan is a major challenge for achieving further increases in living standards and ensuring the financial sustainability of public social expenditure. However, with the right policies in place, there is an opportunity to cope with this challenge by extending working lives and making better use of older workers' knowledge and skills. This report investigates policy issues and discusses actions to retain and incentivise the elderly to work more by further reforming retirement policies and seniority-wages, investing in skills to improve productivity and keeping up with labour market changes through training policy, and ensuring good working conditions for better health with tackling long-hours working culture.

This 2005 OECD report contains a survey of the main barriers to employment for older workers, an assessment of measures to overcome these barriers, and a set of policy recommendations for Denmark.

This report looks at the various pathways out of the labour market for older workers in the United States and at how employers can be supported to retain and hire older workers.

With rapid population ageing and the trend towards early retirement, there is a need to promote better employment opportunities for older people. There is need for reform of old-age pensions and early retirement schemes but this may not be sufficient to raise employment rates for older people significantly or to reduce the future risk of labour shortages. Both governments and firms will need to take active measures to adapt wage setting to ageing workforces, to address the extent to which other welfare schemes act as pathways to early retirement, to tackle age discrimination and to improve the job skills and working conditions of older workers. In addition, older workers will need to change their own attitudes towards working longer and acquiring new skills. This report on Denmark is part of a series of 21 OECD country reports and each report contains a survey of the main barriers to employment for older workers, an assessment of the adequacy and effectiveness of existing measures to overcome these barriers and a set of policy recommendations for further action by the public authorities and social partners. This report is based on the proceedings of a seminar.

In this concluding volume in OECD's Ageing and Employment Series, the experience of OECD countries is summarised and the main lessons are presented.