Browse IFS
Publication types
IFS Working Papers
March 2010 W10/02
Article
Releasing jobs for the young? Early retirement and youth unemployment in the United Kingdom
Type: IFS Working Papers
ISSN: 1742-0415
New version:  [Details]

Download BibTex file | 

This paper tries to assess whether or not we have any empirical evidence of links between early retirement and youth unemployment. Most economists would today dismiss the idea immediately as another version of the naïve 'lump-of-labor fallacy'. In its most basic form, this proposition holds that there is a fixed supply of jobs and that any reduction in labor supply will reduce unemployment by offering jobs to those who are looking for ones. Taken to the extreme, this view would support that the idea that a high level of employment of one group of individuals can only be at the expense of another group: if for instance were the population of a country to increase, younger individuals would be unemployed as older individuals would not 'release' enough jobs for the new entrants. The absurdity of this view in the long term is simply seen by considering the fact that the size of a country does not bear any relation to the share of population unemployed.

Download full version (PDF 414 KB)

Search

Title (or part of title)
Author surname (or part of surname)

Recent publications
View all IFS Working Papers in the series

Recent IFS Working Papers

Subscribe via one of these feeds for IFS Working Papers:
RSS feed
Atom feed