Demographic Change and Job Satisfaction in Service Industries - The Role of Age and Gender on the Effects of Customer-Related Social Stressors on Affective Well-Being

Abstract

Major changes in the working environment during the last decades have been the increased economic importance of the service sector, the aging workforce, and the growing proportion of women in the workforce. The aim of our study is to investigate how customer-related social stressors (CSS) interact with employees’ age and gender regarding employees’ affective stress reactions. We used a middle-term panel study across one week and a sample of police officers (N = 108) having everyday encounters with citizens. Results showed that CSS elicited changes in police officers’ negative affect, and this effect was moderated by gender and age. In particular, older police officers tend to react with weaker increases in negative affect than younger officers do. Similarly, female officers reacted less intensively to negative encounters with citizens than male officers. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for personnel selection and placement, for training, and for team composition.