Are Older Workers Harmful for Firm Productivity?

This paper investigates the effects of the workforce age structure on the productivity of large Belgian firms. More precisely, it examines different scenarios of changes in the proportion of young (16–29 years), middle-aged (30–49 years) and older (more than 49 years) workers and their expected effects on firm productivity. Using detailed matched employer–employee data, we find that young workers are significantly more productive than older workers. Yet, results also show that age structure effects on productivity: (i) have substantially decreased over time and (ii) are much stronger in ICT than in non-ICT firms.