Employer Change and Occupational Skill Transfer of Older Workers

Abstract

Along with the population aging, there is growing interest in the occupational mobility of older workers after 60. Previous studies about the occupational mobility of older workers have identified barriers to mobility among occupational categories but have not sufficiently examined differences within occupational categories and the possibility of different aggregations. This paper therefore focuses on occupational skills, which have attracted much interest in recent studies. Especially, this paper shows two evidences; the extent to which older workers transfer skills before and after employer change, and what types of skills are more likely to be transferred. Compared to younger and older workers, older workers are less likely to transfer for all skills, and those assumed to be of a higher level in their previous occupation, with a large decrease in the number of skills. These results suggest that occupational skills are not necessarily effective explananda for older workers and older workers are reallocated to occupations with lower skill levels regardless of the level of occupational skills in the previous occupation.