Work and Organizational Psychology, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Otto-Behaghel-Strasse 10F, 35394 Giessen, Germany.
Business and Organizational Psychology, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2023 Apr;234:103875. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103875. Epub 2023 Mar 2.
Older job seekers dropping out of the active workforce is a major challenge for individuals, organizations, and society, resulting in the need to protect and extend their working lives. Based on the discouraged workers approach, this study used career construction theory to study how past experiences can discourage older job seekers and make them withdraw from the job search. Specifically, we explored how age discrimination is connected to lower levels of older job seekers' occupational future time perspective (i.e., remaining time and future opportunities) and how it results in less career exploration and higher retirement intentions. Using a three-wave design, we followed 483 older job seekers in two countries (the United Kingdom and the United States) over a total period of two months. Results of structural equation modeling showed that perceived age discrimination decreased older job seekers' remaining time and future opportunities. Further, remaining time was negatively linked to retirement intentions, whereas future opportunities were positively linked to career exploration. Furthermore, results revealed two indirect effects of age discrimination on (1) retirement intentions via remaining time and (2) career exploration via future opportunities. These results show how damaging age discrimination can be in the job search context and we call for the search of potential moderators that can buffer the negative impact of age discrimination. Practitioners should work on protecting older job seekers' occupational future time perspective to keep them active instead of losing them to early retirement.
老年求职者退出劳动力市场是个人、组织和社会面临的一个主要挑战，因此需要保护和延长他们的工作寿命。基于灰心丧气的求职者这一视角，本研究运用职业建构理论来研究过去的经历如何使老年求职者感到沮丧并退出求职。具体来说，我们探讨了年龄歧视如何与老年求职者较低的职业未来时间视角（即剩余时间和未来机会）相关联，以及它如何导致较少的职业探索和较高的退休意向。本研究采用三波设计，在两个月的时间里，跟踪了来自两个国家（英国和美国）的 483 名老年求职者。结构方程模型的结果表明，感知到的年龄歧视降低了老年求职者的剩余时间和未来机会。进一步的，剩余时间与退休意向呈负相关，而未来机会与职业探索呈正相关。此外，结果还揭示了年龄歧视对（1）通过剩余时间影响退休意向，（2）通过未来机会影响职业探索的两个间接影响。这些结果表明，年龄歧视在求职过程中是多么具有破坏性，我们呼吁寻找潜在的调节因素来缓冲年龄歧视的负面影响。从业者应该努力保护老年求职者的职业未来时间视角，让他们保持活跃，而不是让他们提前退休。
