The Effects of Early Retirement on Youth Unemployment : The Case of Belgium

In this paper, we describe the changes of (early) retirement programs over time and study the link between trends in elderly labor force participation and youth unemployment. From a theoretical point of view, there is no convincing argument that the idea of a lump-of-labor should hold. Our empirical results comfort this finding, and indicate a very weak link, if any, between elderly retirement and activity among the young and the prime-age populations.