There are two important barriers to increasing the employment of older workers under rapid technological change. First, older workers engaged in codifiable, routine tasks are particularly prone to the risk of being displaced by computers and robots. Second, several countries have in place various labour market institutions that encourage early retirement, such as exceptional entitlements or looser criteria for unemployment and disability benefits applied to older individuals. We present evidence that these two factors reinforce each other to push older workers out of employment. We find that older workers who are more exposed to digital technologies face a higher risk of exiting employment and that this effect is significantly magnified when they are eligible for an extension of unemployment benefits until the earliest age for drawing old age pension. Furthermore, we present a simple simulation to illustrate that a policy reform that tightens the eligibility for the benefits extension increases mostly the employment of older workers that are more exposed to digital technologies. Our findings provide an important implication on policies to promote longer working lives under rapid technological change. They highlight the importance of closing institutional pathways to early retirement to encourage employers and older workers to make the necessary investment that would allow older workers to keep up with technological change and work longer.

中文翻译：

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技术、劳动力市场机构和提前退休

在快速的技术变革下，增加老年工人的就业存在两个重要障碍。首先，从事可编码的日常工作的老年工人特别容易被计算机和机器人取代。其次，一些国家已经建立了各种鼓励提前退休的劳动力市场制度，例如适用于老年人的特殊权利或更宽松的失业和残疾福利标准。我们提供的证据表明，这两个因素相辅相成，导致老年工人失业。我们发现，更容易接触数字技术的老年工人面临更高的离职风险，当他们有资格将失业救济金延长至最早领取养老金的年龄时，这种影响会显着放大。此外，我们提供了一个简单的模拟来说明，收紧福利扩展资格的政策改革主要增加了更容易接触数字技术的老年工人的就业。我们的研究结果对在快速技术变革下促进更长工作寿命的政策具有重要意义。