This paper investigates whether employers can induce employees to postpone retirement by offering access to training courses that maintain job proficiency. We use unique, matched employer–employee surveys for the Dutch public sector, which include detailed information on a wide range of HR...

This paper investigates the causal effects of the announcement of an increase in the statutory pension age on employee retirement expectations. In June 2010, the Dutch government signed a new pension agreement with the employer and employee organizations that entailed an increase in the...

We document the importance of negatively reciprocal inclinations in labor relationships by showing that a retrenchment of pension rights, which is perceived as unfair, causes a larger reduction in job motivation the stronger workers' negatively reciprocal inclinations are. We exploit unique...

This paper assesses the impact of a dramatic reform of the Dutch pension system on mental health, savings behavior and retirement expectations of workers nearing retirement age. The reform means that public sector workers born on January 1, 1950 or later face a substantial reduction in their...

Several studies show that employees with firm-specific skills are more likely to be covered by employer-sponsored pension schemes than workers with general skills. Therefore it can be expected that workers with firm-specific skills retire earlier. This paper tests this prediction using US data...

This paper uses a natural experiment approach to identify the effects of an exogenous change in future pension benefits on workers' training participation. We use unique matched survey and administrative data for male employees in the Dutch public sector who were born in 1949 or 1950. Only the...

Using a dataset of science and engineering graduates from 12 European countries, we analyse the determinants of labour migration after graduation. We find that not only wage gains are driving the migration decision, but also differences in labour market opportunities, past migration experience,...

Using data from the UK Skills Surveys, we show that the part-time pay penalty for female workers within low- and medium-skilled occupations decreased significantly over the period 1997-2006. The convergence in computer use between part-time and full-time workers within these occupations explains...

Several studies document the fact that low-educated workers participate less often in further training than high-educated workers. The economic literature suggests that there is no significant difference in employer willingness to train low-educated workers, which leaves the question of why the...

This paper analyzes whether part-time employment is beneficial for firm productivity in the service sector. Using a unique dataset on the Dutch pharmacy sector that includes the work hours of all employees and a “hard” physical measure of firm productivity, we estimate a production function...