研发投入强度增长与中年就业退出

Higher R&D Input Intensity and Early Exit from the Labor Market:A Study on Middle-Aged Workers

研发投入强度增长通过改变劳动力市场的技术需求结构,促使不适应劳动力市场变化的劳动者提前退出就业。本文考察不具年龄优势的劳动者微观行为对宏观技术环境变化的响应问题,即行业研发投入增长带来的潜在技术进步,对41~59岁年龄段劳动者退出劳动力市场的影响。考虑行业特征、劳动者个人基本特征及其家庭特征在内的基本结果表明,2002—2010年各行业的研发投入强度增长显著提高了劳动者提前退出就业的概率;并且该效应具有持续性,2002—2010年的研发投入强度增长也提高了劳动者在2011—2015年退出就业的概率。行业研发投入强度增长对劳动者提前退出就业的偏效应非恒定,研发投入强度增幅越大的行业中劳动者提前退出的概率提升越大,此效应还随劳动者年龄的增加而加大,学历相对较低者、非技能型劳动者、女性劳动者以及迁移者受到的平均冲击也更大。劳动者提前退出劳动力市场的现象,是充分利用人力资源的一个矛盾,完善相关政策应充分兼顾生产者效率和劳动者福利。

It is a paradox when the rising age of retirement stipulated in policy meets the phenomenon of early retirement of middle-aged workers,which is adverse to making full use of human resources and partly hinders rising workers’welfare by income cuts.Increasing the intensity of R&D input in production alters the labor market structure by accelerating innovation and promoting technical change.This paper estimates the effect of heightening the intensity of R&D input on the probability of withdrawing from employment for workers who are in their 40 s and 50 s but have not reached the official age of retirement.Our results show that workers in sectors with fast-rising intensity of R&D input prefer an early exit.Our results are robust to a wide range of optional model settings.This study helps us better understand the impact of innovation on employment by examining workers’behavior change,and provides new insight into understanding early retirement in labor markets,both of which have important policy implications.