Max Groneck receives Netspar Theme Grant

The Netspar Scientific Council has awarded a grant of €250,000 to Max Groneck. The Associate Professor at FEB’s department of Economics, Econometrics, and Finance (EEF) received the grant for his research project titled ‘Work in old age and when disabled: The role of employer responsibility’.

In their research, Groneck and his project team analyze the role of employers in establishing suitable labor market conditions to maintain the productivity of workers. They focus on two groups: disabled and older people. The researchers analyze the employer responsibility to accommodate workers with partial disabilities, and to accommodate older workers in flexible work arrangements until the statutory retirement age or beyond. “Fostering this helps to raise the so-called longevity dividend where population ageing can contribute to the economy instead of being a (financial) strain only. Our research contributes to the development of policies to support sustainable employment among disabled and older people, increasing their financial well-being and preserving the viability of the social security system”, Groneck explains.

Project set-up

In the first part of the project, the researchers analyze the extensive (financial) responsibilities of employers for work resumption in the Dutch disability insurance scheme. Groneck: “The aim of obligating employers is to keep workers with health impairments in their jobs and improve their work resumption. The high degree of employer responsibility, however, carries potential costs. We quantify benefits and costs to assess the optimal degree of employer involvement in the disability insurance scheme.” In the second part of the project, Groneck and colleagues will study the importance of an inflexible labor market for older workers with respect to the prevalent abrupt transition from full-time work into full retirement. They will identify the role of employer-side factors, disentangling them from worker preferences and financial incentives built into the social security system.

International team

During the three-year span of the project, an international team of researchers from five different European universities will work together. Groneck is the project leader, the other members of the project team are Viola Angelini (professor at FEB’s EEF department), Johanna Wallenius (professor at Stockholm School of Economics), Pierre Koning (professor at VU Amsterdam), Ulrich Schneider (assistant professor at Freie Universität Berlin), Tunga Kantarcı (Post-doc at Tilburg University), Raun van Ooijen (assistant professor at UMCG) and Laura Jansen (PhD Student at FEB).

Netspar

Netspar, the Network for Studies on Pensions, Aging and Retirement, is an independent knowledge network. Since 2005, they have been promoting a better understanding of the social and economic impact of pensions, aging, and retirement in the Netherlands through the development and dissemination of knowledge. In developing and disseminating knowledge, Netspar uses the latest scientific insights to make seminal contributions to the ongoing social dialogue among policymakers, academics, pension and insurance professionals, and advocacy groups.

For more information, please contact Max Groneck.