Age Discrimination in Hiring Decisions –A Comparison of Germany and Norway

The workforce in all industrialized countries is aging. To forecast future challenges,it is important to understand the impact of a worker’s age on the labor market. In thispaper, we analyze whether older workers in Germany and Norway are treated differentlyin the hiring process. Students and personnel managers from both countries answereda questionnaire regarding the evaluation of three different applicants withvarying age specifications and the respective hiring decisions. The investigationclearly shows that in Germany older applicants have a much lower hiring probability.In Norway, age does play a smaller role in hiring decisions.