Demografischer Wandel,Alterung und Arbeitsmarkt in Deutschland

Debates about the consequences of demographic change for the labor market relate to two distinct levels; both will be addressed in this chapter. First, demographic ageing changes the composition of the workforce. Theories about how labor markets work lead to the conclusion that demographic changes do not affect immediately supply and demand of labor and the structure of the workforce. Rather, consequences of demographic changes are moderated by labor market institutions.Second, demographic ageing has consequences for the organization of work. Permanent topics of sociological research are consequences of ageing workforces in the firm for productivity and innovation, consequences of ageing workforces for human resource policies of firms, extent of and coping with the problem of limited durations to perform strenuous work tasks, and consequences of ageing workforces for industrial relations. One central finding is that firms meet various challenges in their external and internal environments, among them being ageing workforces only one. Moreover, as strategic actors, different firms can choose different strategies even in similar environments. Consequences of demographic changes for work organization on enterprise level are, therefore, far from deterministic.