Labor force participation patterns and occupational segregation of older Argentineans and Brazilians

Given the recent fast changes in population age structure in Brazil and Argentina, translated in aging populations, increasing longevity with improving quality of life of the elderly and considering the maintenance of the levels of their labor force participation rates, our goal is to discuss trends and some consequences of the growth in the share of elderly in the labor supply in these countries. We analyze the differences in the patterns of participation of the elderly population considering gender, age and education. We also address the labour participation patterns in terms of types of occupations, trying to identify niches that enable continued employment, in contexts of high unemployment, job insecurity, technological changes and improvements in the education of younger workers.
This paper proposes to address the problem of occupational segregation of Argentine and Brazilian men and women aged 60 and over who remained in the labor force using household surveys data for 2011 in both countries . The estimation of the level of occupational segregation will take place from the overall association index under a saturated log-linear model and using the square root segregation index proposed by Hutchens (2004).