为何美国科技和工程劳动力迅速老龄化。
Why the US science and engineering workforce is aging rapidly.
机构信息
Department of Economics, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210;
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), 53113 Bonn, Germany.
出版信息
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 Apr 11;114(15):3879-3884. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1611748114. Epub 2017 Mar 27.
The science and engineering workforce has aged rapidly in recent years, both in absolute terms and relative to the workforce as a whole. This is a potential concern if the large number of older scientists crowds out younger scientists, making it difficult for them to establish independent careers. In addition, scientists are believed to be most creative earlier in their careers, so the aging of the workforce may slow the pace of scientific progress. We develop and simulate a demographic model, which shows that a substantial majority of recent aging is a result of the aging of the large baby boom cohort of scientists. However, changes in behavior have also played a significant role, in particular, a decline in the retirement rate of older scientists, induced in part by the elimination of mandatory retirement in universities in 1994. Furthermore, the age distribution of the scientific workforce is still adjusting. Current retirement rates and other determinants of employment in science imply a steady-state mean age 2.3 y higher than the 2008 level of 48.6.
近年来，无论是从绝对数量还是相对于整个劳动力而言，科学和工程劳动力的年龄都迅速增长。如果大量的老年科学家排挤年轻科学家，使他们难以建立独立的职业，这可能令人担忧。此外，人们认为科学家在职业生涯的早期最具创造力，因此劳动力的老龄化可能会减缓科学进步的步伐。我们开发并模拟了一个人口统计模型，该模型表明，最近的老龄化现象在很大程度上是由于大量婴儿潮时期出生的科学家的老龄化所致。然而，行为的变化也起到了重要作用，特别是老年科学家的退休率下降，部分原因是 1994 年大学取消了强制退休制度。此外，科学劳动力的年龄分布仍在调整中。目前的退休率和其他科学就业的决定因素意味着，与 2008 年 48.6 岁的平均水平相比，稳定状态下的平均年龄将高出 2.3 岁。
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