Ageism in the Workplace: The Role of Psychosocial Factors in Predicting Job Satisfaction, Commitment, and Engagement

Abstract

With a worldwide aging population and increasingly youth‐centered societies around the world, there are mounting concerns about how perceptions of age and aging may influence the workplace. Using an age diverse national sample of workers (n = 800) from a wide range of occupations and socioeconomic backgrounds in the United States, this study investigated understudied psychosocial factors (age identity, aging anxiety, perceived age discrimination, perceived social support at work, and work centrality) that may buffer or hinder job satisfaction, commitment, and engagement. Identity variables, both age identity and work centrality, as well as perceived social support at work, were found to be positively associated with job satisfaction, commitment, and engagement, while both perceived age discrimination and anxiety about aging were negatively associated with these three job longevity variables. The results suggest that psychosocial factors such as age identity, work centrality, and perceived social support could be targeted to improve job satisfaction, commitment, and engagement, while it would be beneficial for organizational policies to continue to focus on reducing age discrimination as well as reducing anxiety about aging in the workplace.