Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/58743 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 6381
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This empirical paper documents the relationship between composition of a firm's workforce (with a special focus on age and gender) and its performance (productivity and profitability) for a large representative sample of enterprises from manufacturing industries in Germany. We use unique newly available data that for the first time combine information from the statistics of employees covered by social security that is aggregated at the enterprise level and information from enterprise level surveys performed by the Statistical Offices. Our micro-econometric analysis confirms previous findings of concave age-productivity profiles, which are consistent with human capital theory, and adds a new finding of a rather negative effect of age on firms' profitability, which is consistent with deferred compensation considerations. Moreover, our analysis reveals for the first time that the ceteris paribus lower level of productivity in firms with a higher share of female employees does not go hand in hand with a lower level of profitability in these firms. If anything, profitability is (slightly) higher in firms with a larger share of female employees. This finding might indicate that lower productivity of women is (over)compensated by lower wage costs for women, which might be driven by general labor market discrimination against women.
Subjects: 
ageing
firm performance
gender
productivity
profitability
Germany
JEL: 
D22
D24
J21
J24
L25
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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