Despite its benefits for prolonging careers, participation in training is far lower among older employees (age 50+) than among younger employees. This study analyses gender differences in older employees’ training participation. To investigate the predictors of training intensity, we examine two forms of training: formal educational programmes and on-the-job training. The study draws on a novel data-set, the European Sustainable Workforce Survey, carried out in nine European countries in 2015 and 2016, analysing 2,517 older employees and their managers, spread over 228 organisations. We concentrate on the interplay between employees’ gender, managers’ gender and managers’ ageism in shaping older employees’ training participation. Our findings indicate comparable training participation of older men and women in both forms of training, yet older women more often pay for enrolment in educational programmes themselves. Also, predictors of training participation are different. In line with the tenet of ‘gendered ageism’, we find that managerial ageism primarily targets older women, excluding female employees from the training opportunities available to their comparable male colleagues. Finally, female managers are associated with higher training participation rates for older employees, but only for older men. This result supports ‘queen bee’ arguments and runs counter to ‘homophily’ arguments. Overall, the study demonstrates that workplace dynamics and managerial decisions contribute to the reproduction of traditional gender divides in the late career.
This article analyses old-age discrimination in managers’ hypothetical hiring decisions. We expect that older job candidates are less likely to be hired than equally qualified younger candidates. Statistical discrimination theory argues that when recruiters have more information about the candidate’s skills, age is less important for hiring decisions. Given inconclusive results of previous studies, we elaborate on the theory by focusing on the content rather than the amount of information. We argue that information is primarily influential if it debunks, rather than confirms, ageist stereotypes. To test this argument, a factorial survey was conducted among 482 managers in nine European countries. The findings show that older candidates indeed receive lower hireability scores, and this finding is robust across countries and sectors. However, we do not find that stereotype-rejecting information moderates age discrimination: it does not matter whether recruiters have information that debunks or confirms ageist stereotypes; age is equally important in both situations. Our findings suggest that for hiring decisions, the valuation of applicants’ skills and their age are largely independent.
To cope with an increased proportion of older workers, organisations develop old-age adaptation policies. Two strategies underlie these policies: phasing out and activating. Although the existence of these strategies is widely recognised, the reasons for their presence have rarely been explored. We identify three arguments that explain the extent to which these strategies are present: profit, principles and pressures. We hypothesise that the intensity of the phasing out strategy is higher when it is profitable and easy to replace older workers, when employer's age norms support the principle of treating older workers differently, and when external pressures are high. We also hypothesise that the intensity of the activating strategy is higher when it is profitable but hard to replace older workers, when the employer's age norms reject the principle of treating older workers differently, and when external pressures are high. We use pooled regression analysis to study imputed managerial data from 5,410 organisations in seven European countries. Results confirm the importance of external pressures for the adaptation of both strategies, and of principles for activating. Although policy feasibility is important for the adaption of both strategies, the other profit variables showed mixed results. Net benefits of older workers to the organisation are only important for phasing out, and substitutability only for activating. This paper discusses the wider implications of the study.
Against the backdrop of aging populations and policies to extend working lives, this study advances prior research by examining how job satisfaction of older workers is associated with not only own, but also coworkers’ usage of 3 human resource (HR) policies: phasing out (i.e., lighter workload, additional leave, and semi-retirement), demotion, and training. Exploiting unique, linked organization-department-employee data from the European Sustainable Workforce Survey (ESWS), hypotheses derived from the job demands-resources (JD-R) model and relative deprivation theory are tested with 3-level regression analysis. The findings show that demotees are less satisfied with their job compared to older employees who were not demoted, whereas participation in phasing out arrangements is not related to older workers’ job satisfaction. Older employees who received training are more satisfied with their job than those who did not. Moreover, in departments where coworkers participated in training, older employees who did not receive training are more satisfied than those in departments where training is unavailable or in which training is offered, but not used. Phasing out and demotion of colleagues are not associated with job satisfaction of older workers. These results are largely in line with the JD-R model, as demotion would decrease motivation and, in turn, job satisfaction, whereas training would increase job resources and motivation and, in turn, job satisfaction. This study concludes that providing training to older workers is a fruitful HR strategy for employers to stimulate job satisfaction among their older employees and facilitate longer working lives.
'Iedereen krijgt de mogelijkheid om evenveel training te volgen, ongeacht de leeftijd van de werknemers. Maar hoe vaak ze daadwerkelijk training volgen, ligt bij hen.' Aan de andere kant van de tafel zit de besnorde hr-manager van een groot industrieel bedrijf. Hij erkent dat sommige technologische veranderingen erg veel vragen van zijn personeel, maar vindt ook dat een tekort aan training niet het knelpunt kan zijn. Helaas lijkt de organisatie van deze hr-manager eerder de uitzondering dan de regel, en daar moet wat aan gedaan worden. On the job training – jaarlijks gevolgd door de helft van de beroepsbevolking – wordt vaak geopperd als cruciaal in het omgaan met twee grote trends op de arbeidsmarkt: vergrijzing en technologische verandering.
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