Age diversity can strengthen public administrations by improving innovation, representation and service delivery while fostering a more inclusive and sustainable workforce. Understanding the age profile of the central administration workforce helps determine current and future workforce management challenges, including planning for recruitment, engagement and retention. Governments with a predominantly older workforce may be well placed to draw on a wealth of experience, but may face challenges with workforce renewal and building the next generation of public servants. Those with a predominantly younger workforce may be seen as attractive to younger applicants, but have to prioritise career development and the retention of more experienced staff. A balanced workforce can help bridge the gap between younger and older generations, maintaining a steady pipeline of candidates for middle and senior management roles as the central administration evolves.
In 2023, on average across the OECD, 27.1% of central administration public servants were aged 55 and older, while 19.1% were 18-34 years old, a difference of 8 percentage points. In 12 out of 32 countries with data available (63%), there are more employees in the oldest age group than the youngest, with the largest gaps in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, where over 40% of the workforce are 55 years or older. In contrast, Denmark (32.3%), Japan (30.9%), New Zealand and Israel (both 30.1%) have the highest shares of young workers, indicating the attractiveness of their central administration (Figure 13.3).
On average, the share of older workers in central administration workforces in OECD countries was about 5 percentage points higher than their share in the overall economy (22.5%). Countries with the largest share of older workers in the central administration also showed the greatest difference compared to the overall economy. The top three were Italy, with a difference of 30.9 p.p., Spain (27.1 p.p.) and Greece (21.1 p.p.).
Age is also relevant to experience and tenure. Unsurprisingly, managerial positions were mostly held by the middle (35-54 year-olds) and oldest age groups. On average across OECD countries, those aged 55 years and over occupied 42% of the senior manager positions and 30.3% of the middle manager positions; for the youngest age group these shares were 1% and 6% (Figure 13.4). France (15.6%) and the United Kingdom (19.2%) had the largest shares of young employees in middle manager positions. This may reflect their use of talent management programmes to identify and accelerate the careers of high-potential individuals, such as France’s National Public Service Institute (INSP, 2024) and the United Kingdom’s ''fast stream programme” (GOV.UK, 2024).
Non-managerial positions were dominated by employees in the middle age group, but unlike for managerial positions there was a more equal distribution between the youngest and oldest age groups (Figure 13.5).
