The impact of working conditions on employers' labour demand of older workers : A cross-sectional study on the Swedish labour market

Abstract: The objective of this essay is to identify the different implications that hard and demanding working conditions may have on firms’ labour demand of older workers. The theoretical framework developed in this study is based on Lazear’s deferred compensation theory and adapted for the purpose of the research question to take into consideration the impact of workplaces’ characteristics. Several hypotheses were put forward and tested with logit models and ordinary least squares regressions on a large dataset comprising information on over 2,000 Swedish firms. Results mainly show negative relationships between hard working conditions and the probability of hiring older workers, in particular concerning jobs implying mentally exhausting tasks. Results also tend to show that the higher the age, the lower the probability of being hired. However, the low statistical significance of the results is quite restrictive in terms of generalizability, and further researches are needed to pin down clear trends about the consequences of the different characteristics of the working conditions on the labour demand of older workers, especially concerning the dichotomy between physically demanding tasks and mentally exhausting tasks.