On Thursday, April 6, ISET hosted Professor Giorgio Brunello, who delivered a seminar for the ISET community. The title of his presentation was “Does Delayed Retirement Affect Youth Employment? Evidence from Italian Provinces”. According to his research, pension reforms that raise the minimum retirement age increase the pool of senior individuals aged 50+ who are not eligible to retire from the labor market.

During the presentation, Professor Brunello claimed that reforms typically affect all local labor markets and the intensity of the treatment varies locally because of differences in the age structure of the labor force. Using data from Italian provinces and an instrumental variable strategy, the main interest of research was whether and how changes in the local supply of older workers have affected youth and prime-age employment between 2004 to 2015.

Based on the results of the presented paper, increasing the local supply by just one additional older worker has reduced youth employment by 0.189 individuals and prime-age workers by 0.087 individuals, and both employment and unemployment of older workers have increased.