The Crowding-in Effect of the Delayed Retirement Policy on Youth Employment

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-553-9_36How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Delayed Retirement; Youth Employment; Crowding-in Effect; Human Capital; Silver Economy

Abstract

The acceleration of global population aging has made delayed retirement a key policy for countries to address pension pressures and labor shortages. However, whether it crowds out youth employment remains a long-standing controversy, a question directly linked to social justice and intergenerational harmony. Drawing on life-cycle theory, human capital complementarity theory, and labor market segmentation theory, and integrating insights from entrepreneurship research, this paper posits that delayed retirement may, under specific circumstances, generate a “crowding-in effect” that promotes youth employment. Research indicates that older workers enhance youth skills through knowledge transfer and mentorship programs. Their continued income drives the expansion of “silver economy” industries, creating employment opportunities. At the same time, some high-skilled elderly individuals stimulate youth entrepreneurship by starting businesses or serving as mentors. Optimization of job structures enables young workers to take on more innovative and physically demanding tasks, thereby enhancing overall productivity. International cases demonstrate that delayed retirement in the United States and Germany has not significantly crowded out youth employment. Instead, it exerts positive effects through knowledge spillovers and corporate innovation. Domestic empirical studies also show that in regions or industries with stronger economic vitality, increases in elderly labor force participation are positively or neutrally correlated with youth employment.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Zhuoran Zhou
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/03/25
TI  - The Crowding-in Effect of the Delayed Retirement Policy on Youth Employment
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 4th International Conference on Educational Science and Social Culture (ESSC 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 307
EP  - 317
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-553-9_36
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-553-9_36
ID  - Zhou2026
ER  -