A new NBER Working Paper, Countries For Old Men: An Analysis Of The Age Pay Gap by Nicola Bianchi and Matteo Paradisi, reveals, reveals that the pay gap between older and younger workers has been widening for decades across high-income countries, with wages of older workers growing much faster than those of their younger counterparts. The paper uses administrative and survey data to investigate this growing wage disparity.
“firms cannot change the contracts of older employees and cannot freely add higher-ranked positions to their organizations. In this model, a larger supply of older workers and declining economic growth restrict younger workers’ access to higher-paying roles and widen the age pay gap in favor of older workers.” https://www.nber.org/papers/w32340