Labour market institutions and youth labour markets: Minimum wages and youth employment revisited

EMPLOYMENT Working Paper No. 223

This paper mainly focuses on the issue of interactions between labour market institutions and policies and their effects on youth labour markets, and is primarily concerned with issues grouped under pillars 1 and 3 of youth employment policy as identified by the resolution issued in 2012 by the International Labour Conference calling for action on the youth employment crisis. These institutions also have implications for pillar 5, young people’s rights at work. The paper reports the results of a meta-analysis of the youth employment effects of minimum wage legislation. The main contribution of the paper, however, concerns the role of other labour market institutions in determining the size of the dis-employment effects of minimum wages in youth labour markets.