Health status and education level as the determinants of the quality of human resources in the face of the ageing process of the population. Situation in Poland compared to European countries

Jolanta Kurkiewicz, Cracow University of Economics
Ewa Soja, Cracow University of Economics
Oskar Knapik, Cracow University of Economics

Population ageing affects also human resources. Generations entering labour market are smaller due to decreasing fertility. Generations leaving labour market are more numerous due to longer lifespan and achieving of retirement age by post-war baby boomers. Shrinking of population at productive age requires the prolonging of their presence on the labour market. It is one of the ways of preventing lowering of the standard of living and of sustaining the continuity of development of enterprises. The aim of the work is to: (1) determine the size and structure of human resources, (2) estimation of the quality of human resources at older age, (3) evaluation of the situation in Poland compared to European countries. To these aims the following hypotheses have been assigned: (1) lengthening of lifespan is accompanied by improved quality of human resources, (2) diminishing flow of workers entering the labour market requires prolonging the period of being active on the labour market. In our work we try to evaluate the quality of older human resources expressed by the health status and educational level of the population aged 50 and more, active on the labour market. The social and economic features are taken into account as explanatory variables. For this aim descriptive statistics and statistical modelling (for instance logistic models) are used. Data comes from The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and the Retrospective Survey (SHARELIFE) supported by representative research “Status health of population in Poland” elaborated in the Central Statistical Office in Warsaw. As final results we expect: (1) an evaluation of the potential of the elderly in the context of the workforce, (2) an evaluation of the possibility of the presence of the elderly on the labour market, and (3) formulate directions for demographic, social and economic policy.