Youth unemployment and age structure across the OECD countries

In many countries of the world, youths suffer high rates of unemployment. Statistics published by the OECD (for the second quarter of 2012), show unemployment rates, among people aged 15 to 24 (17.1%), a little more than double of the unemployment rates for the general population (7.9%). Although youth unemployment has remained high during the last decade, their values continue to be a source of constant concern.

One of the arguments offered to explain the high youth unemployment, points out that this is affected by population dynamics, as proposed by the Easterlin´s hypothesis.

Using a panel data model, the objective of this paper is to explore the influence of changes in the age structure, on the youth unemployment rate. Our analysis comprises the 33 OECD country members, from 2000 to 2011. Preliminary results suggest the presence of a crowding out effect among male youngsters 20-24.