Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Human Relations
[0018-7267(200105)54:5]
Volume 54(5): 629661: 017086
Copyright 2001
The Tavistock Institute
SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks CA,
New Delhi
629
04chiu (ds) 29/3/01 7:35 am Page 630
Introduction
Chiu et al. Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers 631
Chiu et al. Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers 633
1976a), although the detailed stereotypes vary with the exact definition of
older workers used.
We would like to emphasize that our concern in this article is with
stereotypical beliefs rather than necessarily with actual job performance. In
fact, the research evidence on the relationship between age and job per-
formance is by no means conclusive. The meta-analyses of Waldman and
Avolio (1986) and McEvoy and Cascio (1989) suggest that on average the
correlation between age and job performance is close to zero. However, there
is a great deal of variation across studies; McEvoy and Cascio (1989), for
example, find correlations ranging from +0.66 to 0.44, with evidence of a
small positive relationship between age and performance for very young
employees. More recent studies have continued to produce mixed findings
and there has also been a suggestion that any positive relationship is likely
to be non-linear, with performance eventually reaching a plateau and then
gently declining as retirement age is approached (Warr, 1994). An expla-
nation for these mixed results, methodological difficulties aside, is that jobs
and their constituent tasks vary in the extent to which their performance is
impaired by physical ageing or enhanced by the accumulation of experience
and skill (see Warr, 1994, for an interesting typology of jobs drawn up on
this basis). What is clear is that older workers are not necessarily any less
effective than their younger counterparts. It seems unlikely that age dis-
crimination can be largely attributed to poorer performance on the part of
older workers; the age stereotypes that we have described may be factually
inaccurate, in general. This does not, of course, deny their possible role in
underpinning the discriminatory treatment of older workers, a possibility
that we explore in this article.
Chiu et al. Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers 635
Hypothesis 1a: Those who work in industries which require more fre-
quent contact with customers (i.e. service industries as opposed to
manufacturing/ production) will have less favourable beliefs about
older workers than those working in industries where there is less cus-
tomer contact.
04chiu (ds) 29/3/01 7:35 am Page 637
Chiu et al. Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers 637
with a more positive supervisor in-group, rather than with older workers in
general. There is also evidence that supervisory status acts as a negative mod-
erator in the relationship between age and beliefs: older workers tended to
have more positive beliefs, but this is less so for older supervisors (Bird &
Fisher, 1986; Hassell & Perrewe, 1995). Again, this may be due to super-
visors distancing themselves from the older group, something that may be
pursued with greater urgency by older supervisors.
Based on the above discussion, we hypothesize that individual charac-
teristics will be related to respondents age stereotypes. Specifically the
following hypotheses are proposed:
Hypothesis 2a: Respondents own age will be positively correlated with
more favourable beliefs about older workers.
Hypothesis 2b: Respondents who have more frequent contact with
older workers will have more favourable beliefs about such workers
than those who have less contact.
Hypothesis 2c: Respondents who are supervisors will have less
favourable beliefs about older workers than those who are not super-
visors.
Hypothesis 2d: Frequency of contact with older workers will negatively
moderate the relationship between age and beliefs, i.e. older respon-
dents will have more favourable beliefs, but this tendency will be weak-
ened where there is frequent contact.
Hypothesis 2e: Supervisory status will negatively moderate the
relationship between age and beliefs, i.e. older respondents have more
favourable beliefs, but this tendency will be weaker for supervisors.
Chiu et al. Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers 639
more likely to consider reassignment rather than corrective action to deal with
work behaviour problems of older workers. Respondents were also less likely
to recommend older workers for promotion to positions requiring creativity,
innovation and financial risk-taking, and were less likely to recommend them
for transfer to a physically demanding job. Subjects saw older workers as
being less motivated to update their skills; thus they were less likely to rec-
ommend them for training and were more likely to see them as untrainable
and hence to consider them suitable for dismissal.
On the basis of such findings, we expect that the age stereotypes indi-
viduals have will influence their attitudes towards the treatment of older
workers on a range of personnel decisions, such as selection for training, pro-
motion and redundancy. We may also expect a similar impact on the willing-
ness of employees to work with older colleagues and on their support for the
exercise of positive discrimination in selecting an older worker to work with.
Specifically, we hypothesize:
Method
Participants
Samples were drawn from Hong Kong and the UK. A special feature of the
samples is the high proportion working in personnel management. The atti-
tudes of such people are likely to be particularly important in shaping the
employment prospects of older people, given their involvement in selection
and other HR decisions. Their familiarity with such decisions also means that
their views may provide a good indicator of the state of HR practice.
UK sample
Data were collected from 265 respondents in the UK, all of whom were part-
time students of management at the University of Teesside. More than half
of the respondents were females (56%). Like the Hong Kong sample, these
respondents were relatively young. The mean age of the UK sample was 33,
with a standard deviation of 7.5, a minimum of 22 and a maximum of 60.
Ninety percent were diploma level students, the remainder being Masters
students. All of them had work experience, and more than half had been
working for at least 10 years. Two-thirds of the respondents worked for
organizations with more than 500 staff. The types of industries to which the
respondents belonged included health/education/social welfare (54%);
manufacturing (21%); finance (7%); construction (6%); transport/ware-
house (4%); wholesale/retailing (3%); and restaurants/hotels (2%).
We cannot claim that the two samples are directly representative of the
Hong Kong and UK populations of employees or managers. Both samples
were relatively young and, having enrolled in part-time management courses,
they are a self-selecting group who may have above-average levels of career
04chiu (ds) 29/3/01 7:35 am Page 641
Chiu et al. Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers 641
Procedure
Questionnaires were administered to some 27 batches of students, 12 in
Hong Kong and 15 in the UK. Before respondents completed the question-
naires, we briefly introduced the purpose of the study and answered ques-
tions raised by the respondents. They were asked not to put down their names
to ensure anonymity and were assured that their participation was on a
voluntary basis. Respondents were given as much time as they needed to
work on the questionnaires. On average, they took 15 to 25 minutes to com-
plete the questionnaire. All returned completed questionnaires.
Variables
Dependent variables
Two sets of dependent measures were assessed: (1) age stereotypes about
older workers, and (2) discriminatory attitudes on employment practices.
The age stereotypes consisted of two dimensions: Adaptability and Work
Effectiveness, measured by six and four questionnaire items, respectively.
These and the other measures were based on items drawn from the Hassell
and Perrewe (1995) questionnaire. The two dimensions broadly reflect earlier
04chiu (ds) 29/3/01 7:35 am Page 642
Hong Kong
One-factor 124.36** 35 .73 .92 .09
Two-factor 60.07* 34 .92 .96 .05
UK
One-factor 208.68** 35 .60 .84 .14
Two-factor 103.35** 34 .84 .93 .08
Chiu et al.
M SD M SD
a Respondents were asked to rate all items according to a five-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree). Items considered by the authors to be
favourable to older workers were reverse scored (R), so that higher scores indicate a more positive belief or attitude towards older workers.
b The size for the UK sample ranged from 253 to 259.
c The size for the Hong Kong sample ranged from 299 to 302.
643
04chiu (ds) 29/3/01 7:35 am Page 644
Training
It is a better investment to train younger workers rather than older workers
Promotion
Older employees should 'step aside' (take a less demanding job) to give younger employees
advancement opportunities
Retention
I think younger employees should be given priority to stay if a company contracts its business
Co-working
Given a choice, I would not work with an older worker on a daily basis
Positive discrimination
If two workers had similar skills, Id pick the older worker to work with me (R)
a Respondents were asked to rate all items according to a five-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (strongly
agree) to 5 (strongly disagree). Items considered by the authors to be favourable towards older workers were
reverse-scored (shown as (R)), so that higher scores indicate a more favourable (less discriminatory) attitude
towards older workers.
Independent variables
As described in the previous section, there are three sets of independent vari-
ables: national, organizational and individual. The UK was coded as 1 and
Hong Kong as zero. There are three organizational level variables. Company
size refers to the number of employees working in the company. Two dummy
variables (1= yes; 0 = no) were constructed to indicate company size with
large meaning 500 employees or more, and medium 100 to 499 employ-
ees. Company size less than 100 employees, considered to be small, served
as the reference category.3 Variables were also included for industry type (1
= services; 0 = manufacturing/production),4 and whether the respondents
organization had a stipulated policy not to allow age discrimination (1 = has
ageism policy; 0 = does not have ageism policy). There are four individual-
level variables: female (female = 1; male = 0), age (ranging from 22 to 60),
whether or not the respondent directs or manages other staff (supervisor) (1
= yes; 0 = no) and the respondents reported frequency of contact with older
workers in their job. The latter was coded with none, representing no
contact with elderly workers, serving as the reference category; some,
defined as once a week or less (1 = yes; 0 = no); frequent, operationalized
as several times a week (1 = yes; 0 = no); and daily, defined as contact every
day (1 = yes; 0 = no). Interaction terms were constructed by multiplying age
04chiu (ds) 29/3/01 7:35 am Page 645
Chiu et al. Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers 645
with the three dummy coded variables on frequency of contact, age with
supervisory status, and respondents country with the two stereotypes.
Analyses
Hypotheses were tested using two separate sets of multiple regression analy-
ses. The first set involved regressing the two age stereotypes on the respon-
dents country, organizational characteristics, individual characteristics and
four interaction terms (i.e. age x supervisory status and age x contact fre-
quency). The variables were entered in four consecutive blocks. The second
set of analyses involved regressing the discriminatory attitudes at work on
country, organizational characteristics, individual characteristics, the two age
stereotypes, and two interaction terms (respondents country x Adaptability
and respondents country x Work Effectiveness). This was repeated for each
of the five discriminatory attitudes.
Results
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Chiu et al.
Variables 1 2 3a 4b 1 2 3a 4b
a Unstandardized regression coefficients of all the main effects are shown before entering the interaction variables.
b Only the unstandardized regression coefficients of the interaction effects at the final step are shown.
p < .1; *p < .05; **p < .01.
647
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Chiu et al. Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers 649
Discussion
Table 6 The effects of national, organizational and individual characteristics, and age
stereotypes on the five discriminatory attitudes at worka
Variables 1 2 3 4a 5b
Training
Adaptability .60** .56** .50** .46**
Work Effectiveness .08 .07 .05 .07
Medium size (vs small) .05 .09 .05
Large size (vs small) .07 .10 .10
Have ageism policy .33** .28** .19
Service industry .13 .15 .19
Age .02** .02**
Female .26** .29**
Supervisor .03 .00
Some contact (vs none) .45** .40*
Frequent contact (vs none) .24 .15
Daily contact (vs none) .43** .32**
Country UK .32**
Country x Adapability .06
Country x Work Effectiveness .15
R2 .15 .17 .22 .24 .24
Final F 46.87** 18.25** 12.24** 12.30** 0.72**
df 2,531 6,527 12,521 13,520 15,518
Promotion
Adaptability .40** .40** .38** .38*
Work Effectiveness .01 .03 .02 .02
Medium size (vs small) .12 .12 .12
Large size (vs small) .01 .00 .00
Have ageism policy .04 .04 .04
Service industry .03 .03 .03
Age .01 .02
Female .09 .08
Supervisor .08 .08
Some contact (vs none) .64 .70
Frequent contact (vs none) .04 .05
Daily contact (vs none) .02 .03
Country UK .03
Country x Adapability .24*
Country x Work Effectiveness .00
R2 .09 .09 .10 .10 .11
Final F 25.56** 8.85** 4.77** 4.40** 4.10**
df 2,531 6,527 12,521 13,520 15,518
04chiu (ds) 29/3/01 7:35 am Page 651
Chiu et al. Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers 651
Table 6 continued
Variables 1 2 3 4a 5b
Working as peers
Adaptability .45** .44** .41** .39**
Work Effectiveness .12 .12 .10 .10
Medium size (vs small) .02 .04 .02
Large size (vs small) .12 .15 .16
Have ageism policy .13 .09 .04
Service industry .14 .10 .08
Age .01 .01
Female .11 .12
Supervisor .08 .10
Some contact (vs none) .05 .02
Frequent contact (vs none) .25 .21
Daily contact (vs none) .31** .27*
Country UK .14
Country x Adapability .14
Country x Work Effectiveness .17
R2 .10 .11 .14 .14 .14
Final F 30.30** 10.93** 6.78** 6.44** 5.76**
df 2,531 6,527 12,521 13,520 15,518
04chiu (ds) 29/3/01 7:35 am Page 652
Table 6 continued
Variables 1 2 3 4a 5b
Positive discrimination
Adaptability .21** .20** .20** .12*
Work Effectiveness .09 .09 .08 .06
Medium size (vs small) .07 .06 .14
Large size (vs small) .24* .19 .19
Have ageism policy .11 .10 .09
Service industry .09 .05 .03
Age .01 .01
Female .15 .09
Supervisor .12 .07
Some contact (vs none) .13 .24
Frequent contact (vs none) .05 .12
Daily contact (vs none) .20 .02
Country UK .60**
Country x Adapability .27*
Country x Work Effectiveness .76**
R2 .03 .05 .07 .14 .19
Final F 8.27** 4.25** 3.12** 6.28** 7.99**
df 2,531 6,527 12,521 13,520 15,518
a Unstandardized regression coefficients of all the main effects are shown before entering the interaction
variables.
b Only the unstandardized regression coefficients of the interaction effects at the final step are shown.
p < .1; *p < .05; **p < .01.
effective at work but, interestingly, they gave them a more positive rating than
did the UK respondents in terms of Adaptability. To the extent that the latter
finding accurately reflects the relative flexibility of older workers in the two
societies, this may be a result of Hong Kongs more flexible labour market.
Limited retirement and social security provision may mean that older workers
in Hong Kong are forced by financial circumstances to remain adaptable to
the demands of a changing labour market. In the UK, the trend towards early
retirement and the more extensive social security and pensions provision may
provide older workers with a weaker incentive to remain flexible. Our aim
here is not, of course, to decry the provision of social welfare protection for
older workers the welfare arguments are overriding here and Hong Kong
has been seen as a laggard in this respect. Rather, we simply point out the
implications for employee behaviour and for attitudes towards older workers.
04chiu (ds) 29/3/01 7:35 am Page 653
Chiu et al. Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers 653
1995), and suggests that the positive impact of own age on beliefs is offset
in the case of supervisors. One explanation for such a finding is that the
impact of own age in fostering positive beliefs is inhibited amongst super-
visors because, whilst they tend to be older than many of their subordinates,
they see themselves as valued members of the organization and wish to dis-
tance themselves from older colleagues, in effect opting out of the older in-
group, even to the extent of adopting negative stereotypes (Hassell &
Perrewe, 1995: 466).
Our results show that the extent to which respondents see older
workers as adaptable has a significant impact on their discriminatory atti-
tudes towards older workers, in terms of decisions on training, promotion
and retention, their willingness to work alongside older workers and the
extent to which they would support positive discrimination in selecting older
work colleagues. These findings are consistent with earlier research showing
a link between negative stereotypical beliefs about older workers and an
intent to treat them less favourably than their younger colleagues (Rosen &
Jerdee, 1976b, 1977). However, the only significant relationship between the
Work Effectiveness belief and discriminatory attitudes was a positive
relationship with the willingness to retain older workers during retrench-
ment. Why the two belief dimensions should differ so much in terms of their
link with discriminatory attitudes is in need of explanation. One possibility
is that the Work Effectiveness dimension, as we have measured it, asks
respondents about the extent to which older workers are more effective than
their younger colleagues. A low score does not necessarily imply that that the
respondent sees older workers as less effective, simply that they are not more
effective, so that such a neutral belief would not necessarily be expected to
lead to a discriminatory attitude. There is also the possibility that the find-
ings may simply reflect the lower internal consistency of the Work Effective-
ness measure.
Our findings suggest that the relationship between stereotypical beliefs
and discriminatory work attitudes differs between Hong Kong and the UK
in the case of only a minority of the discriminatory attitudes. The clearest
finding here is that for UK respondents there is a stronger relationship
between stereotypical beliefs and the willingness to positively discriminate in
favour of an older worker.
We found that the presence of an age discrimination policy in the
workplace is associated with more favourable attitudes on the provision of
training for older workers, although this was only marginally significant.
Add to this the finding noted earlier that age discrimination policies are
associated with more positive beliefs on the Adaptability of older workers,
and it appears that such policies have a role in countering ageist beliefs and
04chiu (ds) 29/3/01 7:35 am Page 655
Chiu et al. Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers 655
education gap between older and younger cohorts in Hong Kong. To the
extent that this is so, we may expect a convergence in Hong Kong and UK
attitudes in the longer term, as the educational level of future cohorts of
older workers rises. In the meantime, there is a need to provide educational
and training opportunities for older workers and to ensure that their dis-
advantages are not compounded by discrimination in access to such oppor-
tunities.
In both the UK and Hong Kong, older workers have in recent years
been disproportionately affected by industrial and organizational restructur-
ing. In the former, early retirement has become almost the norm and is
strongly associated with organizations attempting to avoid compulsory
redundancy among young employees (Taylor & Walker, 1998). In the latter,
retirement provision is usually more limited and the restructuring has been
if anything rather more dramatic. A sharp decline in manufacturing employ-
ment since the mid-1980s, as production moves into the Chinese mainland,
has led to a marked rise in unemployment for older people in particular. A
key issue has been the limited transferability of their manufacturing-based
skills into the expanding services sector, which emphasizes customer service
and English-language skills. Government retraining schemes have made some
impact, but with unemployment rising in the Asian economies, the prospects
for older workers may deteriorate. The need for legislative action on age dis-
crimination may become more urgent.
This article has a number of limitations. First, the nature of our sample
limits the degree to which we can generalize to Hong Kong and UK employ-
ees as a whole. Our samples were not nationally representative, although we
have argued that the nature of our samples, relatively young employees
enrolled in part-time management education courses, means that our analy-
sis constitutes a conservative test for the existence of cultural differences in
age stereotypes. Whilst our Hong Kong and UK samples were not matched,
our use of multivariate analysis allows us some degree of control for organiz-
ational and individual variables in testing for country differences in stereo-
typical beliefs and discriminatory attitudes.
Second, amongst the organization-level variables, we found little
evidence of a significant impact on stereotypical beliefs and discriminatory
attitudes, the main exception being the presence of a policy on age discrimi-
nation. However, our inclusion of the size of the respondents organization
may fail to adequately reflect the true impact of organizational-level influ-
ences. We suggested that organization size is a proxy for the degree of
sophistication in personnel practices, which may be expected to influence
beliefs about older workers. It may be, however, that a more direct measure-
ment of personnel practices, for example the extent to which there is a policy
04chiu (ds) 29/3/01 7:35 am Page 657
Chiu et al. Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers 657
peoples jobs (Cleveland & Landy, 1987). The job stereotype hypothesis thus
sees stereotyping occurring at the level of the job and of the individual. There
is considerable evidence of job stereotyping by age (Cleveland & Landy, 1987;
Gordon & Arvey, 1986; Institute of Personnel Management, 1993; Lawrence,
1988). Furthermore, Finkelstein et al. (1995) found some evidence that
younger people were rated more positively in young jobs, although older
workers were not rated more highly in old jobs and younger people were
more highly rated in age-neutral jobs. Perry et al. (1996) also found evidence
of such an asymmetric interaction between age and job type, suggesting that
the negative consequences of being in an age-incongruent job may be offset in
the case of younger people in old-type jobs due to their appearing as high
fliers when associated with an older and often more senior or prestigious
job. These issues remain unexplored in the Eastern context and this is an area
where further research would be of value.
Notes
Chiu et al. Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers 659
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