Employability and Employment of Senior Workers in France and in Sweden, an Analysis of SHARE data

Sammanfattning: In parallel with the ageing of the European population, the number of senior workers (that is to say, workers aged 50 and more) is expected to increase in the decades to come. The necessity to maintain senior workers into the labor force (specially to support the sustainability of pensions system) combined with a general trend to delay the retirement age and with the current economical climate, makes the employment of senior workers a burning issue. Significant differences indeed exist between European countries. While Sweden has the highest senior employment rate, France has one of the lowest. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether these differences can be explained through differences in terms of employability. This multidimensional concept is here explored through the analysis of quantitative data collected by the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). These data provide an updated version of the situation of senior employees in France and in Sweden and more specifically of their employability. Some indicators of the latter can be thus defined and will be used to look at differences or similarities between French and Swedish senior workers generally speaking and from a gender perspective. The results have confirmed the role of initial education and long-life training which contribute respectively to the employability capital of workers and affect positively the employment rates. Such indicators are the first steps in the definition of the employability, which make way for further researches opening the definition to the other part of the active labor force (that is to say, the unemployed).