Careers

Prolonging careers and postponing retirement are examined in work package 2. The length of careers is influenced by a number of personal and institutional factors. Employee choices are influenced by, among other things:

  • financial incentives created by pension accruals
  • criteria for granting early retirement
  • ability to work
  • social norms related to retirement

Employers’ actions and attitudes towards older workers also play a key role. The individual significants of each of these effects however remains unclear.

We study the effects of pensions and social security on the behaviour of employees, companies and entrepreneurs. The aim here is to provide information on how reforming the pension and social security system could prolong working careers without negative consequences for social sustainability, such as an increase in poverty. We study the effects of different social benefits, their financing and access conditions. We focus here in particular on causal effects, i.e., cause-and-effect relationships.

We work closely with the work packages on migration and health spending.

Focus of this work package

1. Retirement age as a social norm
2. Partial participation in the labour market
3. Impact of pension reforms on retirement and well-being
4. Social security programmes and labour demand
5. Social security for entrepreneurs

Researchers

Tomi Kyyrä

Research Professor Tomi Kyyrä from the VATT Institute for Economic Research is responsible for this work package.

Other researchers are