This article examines country differences in the association between education and voluntary or involuntary labor market exit and whether these country differences map onto institutional characteristics of the countries. Work exit is defined as involuntary or voluntary based on the reasons of exit. Four different types of institutional factors, push and pull, aiming for an earlier work exit and need and maintain factors to retain older workers in employment are considered. Using data from 15 European countries from the longitudinal Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), discrete-time event history models with a categorical outcome are estimated for each country separately. In a second step, we add macro-level indicators and conduct meta-analyses to analyze country differences. Results show that in almost all countries a social gradient in involuntary work exit exists but not in voluntary exit. Lower-educated workers are more likely to involuntarily exit the labor market. Institutional factors, especially those supporting older workers’ retention in employment, are associated with a smaller social gradient in work exit. Our findings suggest that investments in active labor market expenditures, especially in lifelong learning and rehabilitation for lower educated workers, may help to reduce the social gradient in involuntary work exit.

本文研究了教育与自愿或非自愿劳动力市场退出之间关联的国家差异，以及这些国家差异是否反映了这些国家的制度特征。工作退出根据退出原因定义为非自愿或自愿。四种不同类型的制度因素，推和拉，旨在更早的工作退出和需要和维护考虑了留住老年工人就业的因素。使用来自欧洲健康、老龄化和退休纵向调查 (SHARE) 的 15 个欧洲国家的数据，对每个国家分别估计具有分类结果的离散时间事件历史模型。第二步，我们添加宏观层面的指标并进行荟萃分析以分析国家差异。结果表明，几乎所有国家都存在非自愿工作退出的社会梯度，但自愿退出不存在。受教育程度较低的工人更有可能不自觉地退出劳动力市场。制度因素，尤其是那些支持老年工人留住就业的因素，与工作退出的社会梯度较小有关。我们的研究结果表明，对积极劳动力市场支出的投资，