The Changing Age of Civil Servants in the Administrative Service Branch in Taiwan and Its Implications for Public Personnel Policies
Jay N. Shih*
Abstract
The impact of human capital on organizational performance has been increasingly advocated by the human resource management research community. The similar argument can be also found in the theory of organizational demography which suggests many important employees' characteristics, such as age, education, experience etc., collectively will provide more explanatory power for employee behaviors than other organizational factors. The literature however has not included many efforts for investigating the demographic trend in the public sector. This paper focuses on the age dimension of civil servants in the administrative service in Taiwan. It analyzes the current status and the trend from 2001 to 2008 by four categories. Based upon the result, this paper finally raises several important issues related to public personnel policies and democratic governance for further discussions.
Keywords: organizational demography, age, civil servants, policemen
*Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Public Administration, National Cheng-chi University, Taiwan.