Capturing the heterogeneity of life courses improves the accuracy, detail and policy relevance of population and labour force
projections. Our study uses the microsimulation model microDEMS for Austria, which simulates individual life courses at a
high level of detail and in their family context. The model pays particular attention to educational attainment, health and
labour market participation. By maintaining the longitudinal consistency of labour market careers, including the tracking
of insurance periods, together with the implementation of detailed retirement rules, our model provides realistic representations
of retirement decisions. While we reproduce the demographic outcomes of official (Statistics Austria) population projections,
including international migration by region of birth, we integrate several additional dimensions, such as educational differentials
in mortality and fertility. MicroDEMS allows to consider a wide range of scenarios when assessing the sensitivity of results,
or to focus on the impact of policy changes targeted at specific population subgroups, such as mothers, immigrants, or people
with health impairments or lower educational levels. MicroDEMS is a detailed national version of the comparative microWELT
model. In this context, microDEMS is used for sensitivity analysis and case studies to assess potential specification bias
introduced in microWELT due to the neglect of institutional detail or the less detailed treatment of population heterogeneity,
such as in the case of international migration.
The aim of this study is to assess the impact of the ongoing harmonisation of the retirement age for women with that for men
on women's labour supply in Austria. According to the current legal framework, the standard retirement age for women will
be gradually raised from 60 to 65 years from 2024 onwards, with the retirement age being raised by 6 months each year. The
impact of the pension reform on women's labour supply is quantified using the dynamic microsimulation model microDEMS. This
model integrates demographic changes in line with official population projections and detailed labour market modelling. According
to our projections, the labour supply of women aged 60 to 64 increases by 87,000 in 2040 compared to a scenario in which the
retirement age remains unchanged. We compare our results with two alternative approaches: the more stylised microWELT simulation
model and a purely data-driven approach. While all methods produce very similar results in the long run, the detailed modelling
in microDEMS provides more plausible results during the transition period when the reform is gradually implemented. This is
because it allows for a realistic representation of pension paths, taking into account all relevant pension types and the
corresponding eligibility criteria, such as sufficient accumulated insurance periods. In contrast to a purely data-driven
approach, microDEMS modelling also has the advantage of explicitly representing and quantifying the components of the change
in labour supply.
Die vorliegende Studie erarbeitet eine Abschätzung der künftigen Entwicklungen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt für ältere Personen. Dazu
wird der Einfluss des Gesundheitszustands, der Ausbildung und anderer Faktoren auf die Erwerbskarriere analysiert und die
Beschäftigungslage Älterer mit Hilfe eines dynamischen Mikrosimulationsmodells bis 2040 prognostiziert. Dieser Ansatz, welcher
auf individuellen Erwerbskarrieren einer repräsentativen Stichprobe der Bevölkerung basiert, erlaubt eine Abschätzung künftiger
Entwicklungstendenzen in Bezug auf Größe und Struktur der österreichischen Erwerbsbevölkerung. Die modellierten Übergänge
zwischen den verschiedenen Erwerbszuständen hängen dabei neben Alter und Geschlecht von individuellen Gegebenheiten wie dem
Gesundheitszustand, dem höchsten formalen Bildungsabschluss, aber auch der bisherigen Erwerbskarriere ab. Basierend auf detaillierten
Analysen zur Auswirkung dieser Faktoren auf die Übergangschancen bzw. ‑risiken zwischen verschiedenen Erwerbspositionen simuliert
das Modell künftige Entwicklungen des österreichischen Arbeitsmarktes, wobei auch regulatorische Veränderungen des Pensionssystems
berücksichtigt werden.
This technical report presents the dynamic microsimulation model microWELT-US developed for US labour force projections accounting
for education and health. microWELT-US is the adaptation of an existing microsimulation model for Europe. The microsimulation
model supports a comparative analysis of the effect of socio-demographic change on future labour force participation. The
model is a continuous time, competing risk, interacting population model supporting alignment to existing population projections.
The model is built on the microWELT modelling platform implemented in Modgen, a freely available programming technology developed
and maintained at Statistics Canada. The model has a graphical user interface allowing the editing of parameters, scenario
creation, and exploration of simulation results. This report gives an overview of the model architecture, model parameters,
the base scenario, and key simulation results comparing the USA to Germany, France, and Spain.
Der demographische Wandel wird in den kommenden Jahren in den meisten Industrienationen zu einer alternden und damit schrumpfenden
Erwerbsbevölkerung führen. Infolge der demographisch bedingten Schrumpfung der Erwerbsbevölkerung werden immer weniger Menschen
dazu beitragen, den materiellen Wohlstand eines Landes zu erwirtschaften. Das Österreichische Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung
(WIFO) analysierte im Jahr 2019 im Auftrag der Bertelsmann Stiftung, welche Auswirkungen die zu erwartende demographische
Entwicklung in ausgewählten Branchen auf die gesamtwirtschaftliche Entwicklung und wichtige makroökonomische Größen haben
wird ("Makroökonomische Konsequenzen der Alterung und des gerichteten technologischen Wandels"). Basierend auf diesen Erkenntnissen
werden nun die Auswirkungen des demographischen Wandels auf die Wirtschaft detaillierter abgeschätzt, wobei der Einfluss von
Bildung und Gesundheit sowie einer besseren Erwerbsintegration von Menschen mit gesundheitlichen Problemen auf die Entwicklung
der Erwerbsbeteiligung berücksichtigt wird.
In the coming years, demographic change will lead to an aging and subsequently shrinking workforce in most industrialized
nations. As a result of the demographically induced shrinkage of the workforce, fewer and fewer people will contribute to
generating a country's material prosperity. In 2019, the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO) was commissioned by
the Bertelsmann Stiftung to analyse the impact that the expected demographic development in selected industries will have
on overall economic development and key macroeconomic variables ("Macroeconomic Consequences of Ageing and Directed Technological
Change"). Based on these findings, the effects of demographic change on the economy are now estimated in more detail, considering
the influence of education and health as well as better labour force integration of people with health problems on the development
of labour force participation.
Diese Studie untersucht die sozialen Unterschiede in der Inanspruchnahme des Gesundheitssystems anhand einer Analyse der Gesundheitskosten
unterschiedlicher Bildungsgruppen im Lebensverlauf. Dazu werden in einem ersten Schritt durchschnittliche Alterskostenprofile
für Männer und Frauen nach höchster abgeschlossener Bildung ermittelt. In einem zweiten Schritt werden in einer dynamischen
Mikrosimulation unter Berücksichtigung von Änderungen der Lebenserwartung und der Zusammensetzung der österreichischen Bevölkerung
nach Alter und Bildung die Gesundheitskosten einzelner Kohorten und insgesamt geschätzt. Höhere Bildung geht, wie die Ergebnisse
zeigen, in den meisten Lebensabschnitten im Durchschnitt mit besserer Gesundheit und niedrigeren Gesundheitskosten einher.
Durch den positiven Zusammenhang zwischen Bildung und Lebenserwartung hat höhere Bildung aber auch einen gegenteiligen Kosteneffekt.
Der Gesamteffekt weist für Männer und Frauen teils unterschiedliche Muster auf. Insgesamt hat die Verbesserung der Bildungsstruktur
der Bevölkerung einen mäßig dämpfenden Effekt auf die Kostendynamik im Gesundheitssystem, der einen Teil des Kostenanstieges
infolge der Zunahme der Lebenserwartung kompensiert.
This paper studies the effect of population ageing on the inter- and intra-generational redistribution of income from a longitudinal
perspective, comparing lifetime measures of income and transfers by generation, gender, education and family characteristics.
For this end, we incorporate new disaggregated National Transfer Account (NTA) data and concepts of generational accounting
into the dynamic microsimulation model microWELT. This bottom-up modelling strategy makes it possible to project, for each
generation and socio-demographic group, the net present value of expected transfers. microWELT delivers detailed sociodemographic
projections consistent with Eurostat population projections but additionally providing the required detail concerning the
changes in the population composition by education and family characteristics. Also, the model allows incorporating mechanisms
to balance budgets over time in response to population ageing. Our study compares the results for Spain and Austria. We find
significant differences in the role of private and public transfers related to parenthood. While in both countries parents
privately transfer substantially more money to others, the Austrian welfare state fully compensates for these differences
through public transfers to parents. Such compensation is not observed in Spain.
This paper examines return and onward migration of immigrants to Austria, taking into account immigration type, country of
origin, and employment outcomes. The analysis is based on longitudinal administrative records of the Austrian Social Security
Database of immigrants who entered Austria between 2009 and 2017. It is the first such study for Austria. We find that about
25 percent of immigrants leave Austria within less than a year of their arrival and 50 percent within 5.5 years. Return and
onward migration is closely correlated with immigration type and origin. Refugees have a very low likelihood to leave Austria,
whereas labour migrants have a substantially higher one. Women are more likely to stay than men and immigrants from Turkey
have the lowest return probabilities among all origin groups. Emigration is also closely correlated with labour market success,
the likelihood to stay depending on the speed of labour market integration. The consequence of these patterns is that the
composition of the stock of immigrants living in Austria differs from the structure of new immigrants entering the country.
We apply dynamic microsimulation to project the size and structure of the first-generation immigrant population in Austria
as well as its labour market integration up to 2060. Our simulation results suggest that eventually, over 90 percent of the
resident immigrant population attains at least some labour market experience and that the differences in return and onward
migration across immigrant groups work to shift the structure of the immigrant population in the direction of third-country
nationals.
In this paper, we present the results of a dynamic microsimulation analysis that examines how changes in the educational integration
of first- and second-generation immigrants would affect the future size of the Austrian labour force. Due to population ageing
and migration, the number and proportion of people with a migration background will increase significantly in the coming decades.
Differences in educational careers, as well as differences in labour market participation between the second generation of
migrants with EU or EFTA backgrounds and people without a migration background, would have only a minor impact on future labour
force participation dynamics. In contrast, closing education and labour force participation gaps for the second generation
of migrants with a third country background would lead to a significant increase in the size and qualification structure of
the working population.
