Money matters, but what else? Mature worker motives and the importance of gender, age, socioeconomic status and age-inclusive HR practices

Abstract

Policies encouraging extended workforce participation mainly focus on financial motives, but socioemotional selectivity theory and research suggest that mature worker motives are multifaceted, with emotionally meaningful goals gaining importance with age. We adopt a person-centred approach using latent class analysis of survey data from 1501 Australian workers aged 45 years and over. Two motivational profiles based on patterns of motives were identified, which we term income-dominant (income is the main reason) and socioemotional-income (socioemotional reasons are dominant, but income is important too). Contrary to expectations, we found no evidence of a socioemotional-dominant profile. This provides new theoretical insights, as it suggests that even though socioemotional reasons may increase in importance with age, financial reasons remain important to most mature workers, especially those who may view work as being transactional. Being female, older, and having higher socioeconomic status and age-inclusive HR policies increase the odds of having a socioemotional-income rather than income-dominant profile. The socioemotional-income subgroup had lower turnover intentions and later desired retirement ages than the income-dominant subgroup, highlighting the potential for more socioemotionally focused policies and practices to encourage extended workforce participation. JEL Classification: J26, M12, M54