The Grand View on Age and Productivity

This chapter investigates the shape and peak of the relation between age and productivity and under which circumstances specific age-productivity profiles exist. It starts by reviewing the main approaches used to estimate productivity by age: supervisors' evaluations, measuring the quantity and quality produced, analyses of large-scale employer-employee datasets and studies of age-earnings structures. Thereafter, it discusses potential causes of job performance variation by age, and how changes in abilities and health by age and variations in the workplace requirements are likely to alter agevariation in productivity over time.