Training and Age-Biased Technical Change
Résumé
Using a matched employer-employee dataset on the French manufecturing sector in the 1990s, we investigate how training incidence responds to technical and organizational changes. Using a difference-in-difference approach across age groups and types of firms, we find that older workers in low-skill occupations lag behind in terms of training (in computer skills and in teamwork) when firms implement advanced information technologies. By contrast, there is no significant difference between age groups in the training response to advanced IT among workers in high-skill occupations, or in the training disadvantage of older workers with regard to training in computer skills may be one cause of age-biased technical change. It severly affects low-skill older in firms implementaing advanced information technologies.