Working Paper: NBER ID: w5619
Authors: Richard W. Johnson; David Neumark
Abstract: This paper explores the prevalence and consequences of age discrimination in the workplace by analyzing self-reports of discrimination by respondents in the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men. Age discrimination was reported in seven percent of our cases, during the period 1966-1980. Workers with positive reports were much more likely to separate from their employer and less likely to remain employed than workers who report no age discrimination. The estimated effect of reported discrimination remains large and significant even when controlling for the existence of mandatory retirement provisions on the current job. These findings are generally robust to numerous attempts to correct the estimates for the inherent limitations of self-reported data, particularly the potential heterogeneity bias that arises from differences in the propensity to report discrimination, and the possibility that discrimination is reported in response to other negative labor market outcomes.
Keywords: age discrimination; employment status; older workers; job separations; self-reports
JEL Codes: J14; J63
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| self-reported age discrimination (J71) | job separations (J63) |
| self-reported age discrimination (J71) | spells of nonemployment (J64) |
| self-reported age discrimination (J71) | likelihood of leaving employer (J63) |
| job separations (J63) | employment status (J63) |
| self-reported discrimination (J71) | dissatisfaction with mandatory retirement provisions (J26) |