Life-long learning is important to prevent transitions out of the labor force, especially against the background of demographic change. This disproportionately affects older workers who have to compete with younger, recently trained workers. The key aim of this study is to explore modes to mitigate these inequalities and retain more of these older cohorts in the labor force. In this context, we examine the relationship between work-related training and labor force participation of older workers in a cross-country setting. Further, we are interested in how confidence in one’s own ability – also known as self-efficacy – impacts work-related training and labor force participation.
We use three waves of the Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) for the period 2011- 2015.
Preliminary results indicate a positive effect of training on labor force participation. Moreover, we find that the higher the self-efficacy is, the higher is the probability to remain in the labor force. However in the case of the latter, the statistical significance is low.
The results hold once we control for eligibility for early retirement and for normal old age pension. Early retirement can be seen as an attractive, but nevertheless costly, pathway out of the labor force for those with lower self-efficacy.
