Desire to Retire: Increasing Age Diversity in the Workplace

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Desire to Retire: Increasing Age Diversity in the Workplace
As a result of demographic changes in many industrialized countries, organizations are experiencing increased age diversity (Hertel, Van der Heijden, de Lange, & Deller, 2013a). In the US, this is due to the aging baby boom generation (Schram, 2006), and organizations are faced with adjusting to the changing demographic. By contrast, in Europe and China the labor force is shrinking (Cheung & Wu, 2013; Schermuly, Deller, & Busch, 2014), thus requiring organizations to find ways to recruit and retain older workers. In this paper, I will explore increasing age diversity in the workplace as it relates to employment relations, age discrimination, age diversity challenges, and age diversity benefits.
Employment Relations
As the population ages, there will be changes in the employment relationship between older workers and their employers. When workers age, they tend to perceive more limited room for further growth in the organization and their primary focus is to maintain their current job (Cheung & Wu, 2013). Older workers also have a higher sense of generativity, which is a desire to pass on knowledge and skills to another generation (Schermuly et al., 2014). These two examples would lead to a more stable employment relationship between an aging workforce and their organizations.
However, many research studies have shown older workers to be the targets of persistent negative perceptions (Hertel, Van der Heijden, de Lange, & Deller, 2013b; Hippel, Kalokerinos, & Henry, 2013; Ostroff & Atwater, 2003). Stereotype threat occurs when an individual believes that they may be the target of demeaning stereotypes (Hippel et al., 2013). Stereotype threat experienced by older w...

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...3), 382-393. doi: 10.1177/0164027513508288
Schermuly, C. C., Schroder, T., Nachtwei, J., Kauffeld, S., & Glas, K. (2012). Die Zukunft der Personalentwicklung. Eine Delphi-Studie [The future of human resource development. A delphy study]. Zeitschrift fur Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie, 56, 111–122. doi:10.1026/0932-4089/a000078
Schram, J. (2006). SHRM Workplace Forecast. Alexandria, VA: Society for Human Resource Management.
Van der Heijden, B.I.J.M., de Lange, A.H., Demerouti, E. & Van der Heijde, C.M. (2009). Age effects on the employability-career success relationship. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 74(2), 156-164. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2008.12.009
Von Hippel, C., Kalokerinos, E. K., & Henry, J. D. (2013). Stereotype threat among older employees: Relationship with job attitudes and turnover intentions. Psychology and Aging, 28(1), 17-27. doi:10.1037/a0029825

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