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Demographic Origins of the Decline in Labor’s Share

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Glover
  • Jacob Short
Abstract
Since 1980, the earnings share of older workers has risen in the United States. At the same time, labor’s share of income has declined significantly. We hypothesize that an aging workforce has contributed to the decline in labor’s share of income. We formalize this hypothesis in an on-the-job search model in which employers of older workers may have substantial monopsony power due to the decline in labor market dynamism that accompanies aging. The greater monopsony power manifests as a growing wedge between a worker’s earnings and their marginal product over the life cycle. We estimate the profile of these wedges using cross-industry variation in labor’s share and the age distribution of earnings. We find that a 60-year-old worker receives half the marginal product relative to when they were 20. Together with recent demographic trends, this can account for 59% of the recent decline in labor’s share of earnings in the United States.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Glover & Jacob Short, 2023. "Demographic Origins of the Decline in Labor’s Share," Staff Working Papers 23-20, Bank of Canada.
    • Handle: RePEc:bca:bocawp:23-20
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Amanda Michaud, 2023. "David Autor, David A. Mindell, and Elisabeth B. Reynolds: The Work of the Future—Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 63-64, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labour markets; Productivity;

    JEL classification:

    • D33 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Factor Income Distribution
    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

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