Who Is Considered An Older Worker'? Extending Our Conceptualisation of Older' From An Organisational Decision Maker Perspective

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doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12041
Who is considered an ‘older worker’? Extending

our conceptualisation of ‘older’ from an
organisational decision maker perspective
Jean McCarthy, Noreen Heraty and Christine Cross, University of Limerick
Jeanette N. Cleveland, Colorado State University
Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 24, no 4, 2014, pages 374–393
A refinement of the construct of age, specifically ‘older’, is recognised as a critical measurement concern
for experts in both ageing research and policy formation. In this context, we set out to both
chronologically define an ‘older worker’ and to identify on what basis the age of ‘older’ is determined.
In doing so, we draw on open-ended survey data (collected in 2011) from a sample of 407 organisational
decision makers across all industries in Ireland. Our focus was specifically on the perspective of
organisational decision makers because these individuals will be instrumental in facing the challenges
associated with workforce ageing. The results show that workers are considered as ‘older’ at a younger
age than might be expected and that decision makers conceptualise workers as ‘older’ using various
approaches in the organisational context. Our findings contribute to the literature in three ways: firstly,
by providing an important empirically derived understanding of the term ‘older worker’; secondly, by
empirically examining previously suggested ‘possible’ indicators of age; and thirdly, by demonstrating
that these indicators are conceptually and empirically distinct, advancing theory on the concept of age
in the workplace.
Contact: Jean McCarthy, Department of Personnel and Employment Relations, University of
Limerick, Limerick, Ireland. Email: jean.mccarthy@ul.ie
INTRODUCTION
W
orkforce ageing has been labelled the defining social issue of the 21st century
(Pitt-Catsouphes, 2007). As ‘older workers’ become a dominant demographic group
in the workplace, finding solutions to the economic and social pressures arising from
ageing populations through increasing the labour market participation of these ‘older workers’
is a persistent and pressing policy concern [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD), 2005; Phillipson and Smith, 2005; Riach, 2009]. The study of ageing at
work with a particular focus on ‘older workers’ is thus at the forefront of the research agenda
internationally, and yet, there remains little consensus on the age or ages at which an ‘older
worker’ is defined (Charness et al., 2007; Finkelstein, 2011). Schalk et al. (2010) draw attention
to the need for a better conceptualisation of age in the workplace than currently exists because
the specific age at which an employee is identified as ‘older’ can have important, often
negative, outcomes for them (Snape and Redman, 2003; Visser et al., 2003; Wood et al., 2008).
Despite repeated calls for the refinement of the construct of age in the workplace (cf. Kooij
et al., 2008; Schalk et al., 2010; Finkelstein, 2011), the current lack of a priori consensus on the
term ‘older worker’ presents a problem not only for ageing and work researchers, but also for
policy makers and decision makers alike (Truxillo et al., 2012, March) because, as Gonyea (2009)
suggests, any attempt to determine the current and future number of older workers must start
with a definition of who ‘older workers’ are. More specifically, understanding older worker bias
374 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 24 NO 4, 2014
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: McCarthy, J., Heraty, N., Cross, C. and Cleveland, J.N. (2014) ‘Who is considered an ‘older worker’? Extending
our conceptualisation of ‘older’ from an organisational decision maker perspective’. Human Resource Management Journal 24: 4, 374–393.
Jean McCarthy, Noreen Heraty, Christine Cross and Jeanette N. Cleveland
is made more difficult ‘if we do not know what we are talking about when we use the word
old’ (Finkelstein and Farrell, 2007: 10).
This article offers an empirical investigation of the construct of age in the workplace and
addresses repeated calls for greater empirical evidence at the level of the organisation on the
conceptualisation of age at work. We contribute to the literature in three particular ways.
Our first contribution in this article is to empirically explore at what age, and why, a worker
is considered ‘older’ by decision makers in organisations. We do this by offering empirical
evidence from 407 managers and supervisors on the age at which they consider a worker
to be ‘older’, as well as their rationale as to why they conceptualise a worker to be ‘older’
at this age. We found no published empirical evidence of this nature in our search of the
extant literature to date; yet the centrality of this stakeholder group in understanding and
managing age diversity is increasingly recognised. We argue that any evidence that helps us
to better understand how this group conceptualises age in the workplace offers progress in
this field.
We identify a decision maker as any manager or supervisor who has direct responsibility for
making decisions relating to the hiring, training, development, promotion or dismissal (by way
or redundancy) of employees in their organisation. We believe that decision makers’ views of
who constitutes an older worker are critical because these managers and supervisors determine
entry/re-entry to employment, identification of talent for promotion, access to training and
development opportunities at work, and retention prospects for all workers. We know from
successive studies over many years that age bias remains a persistent problem in the workplace.
Hirsch et al. (2000) point to evidence of outright and pervasive age discrimination in the
workplace and successive meta-analyses of age discrimination research by Finkelstein et al.
(1995), Kite and Johnson ((1988) and of age stereotypes by Ng and Feldman (2008) consistently
indicate an overall negative bias against ‘older workers’. These negative stereotypes become
ingrained in organisational norms and incorporated into HR systems (Farr et al., 1998) unless
actively challenged. In point of fact, Hedge and Kehoe (2009) stress that there are probably
more policies and decisions that are implicitly age biased than those that are explicitly so, while
Adler and Hibler (2009) note that employer practices regarding hiring, lay-offs, workplace
environment and employee benefits structure all play an important role in determining an older
worker’s ability to work. McCann and Giles (2002: 167) further caution that where negative
perceptions of older people in general are extrapolated into the workplace context, those
generalisations can play a part in stereotypical expectations by management, which may serve
as a harbinger to ageist communication and discriminatory practices towards older workers.
Both Leisink and Knies (2011) and Hedge (2009) identify a central role for managers in this
respect because their role provides them with the potential to influence cultural values and
position their organisation as one that supports age-neutral policies and practices. Together, we
can see that the manner in which ‘older workers’ are considered by managers is likely to have
a significant impact on the treatment of this category of worker, a point that Schalk et al. (2010)
suggest is likely to be determined by certain underlying conceptualisations of ageing.
Kite and Wagner (2004) argued that age-based ratings cannot be easily categorised or
captured because it matters whom you ask and what you ask about. While a number of models
have offered important conceptual approaches to how workers can be categorised as ‘older’ (i.e.
Sterns and Doverspike, 1989; Cleveland and Shore, 1992; Pitt-Catsouphes et al., 2010), to date
these models have not been empirically examined in an organisational context. Our second
contribution, therefore, is to empirically examine the utility of Sterns and Doverspike’s
conceptualisation of age (Sterns and Doverspike, 1989) framework for understanding age in an
organisational context – to our knowledge, this has not been completed or certainly published
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 24 NO 4, 2014 375

Who is considered an ‘older worker’?
to date. We show that previously suggested ‘possible’ conceptualisations of ageing are

conceptually and empirically distinct, particularly in the context of work.
Our third contribution proposes an extension of Sterns and Doverspike’s (1989) framework,
building on recent work by Schalk et al. (2010), which we believe resonates with practitioners
and which provides avenues for fruitful debate in terms of policy development.
In attempting a clear categorisation in this article, we are asking organisational decision
makers about who they consider an ‘older worker’ to be and why they consider such a worker
to be ‘older’. Our core argument in this article centres around this: if we are to progress to a
stage where we can influence decisions about older worker longevity in the workplace, we need
first to know at what age a worker is identified as an ‘older worker’, and more specifically, we
need to understand what influences this concept of ‘older’ in an organisational context.
This article is organised around the following sections. First, we discuss the difficulties
related to defining the ‘older worker’ and explore existing conceptualisations used to define age
in the workplace, with a particular focus on Sterns and Doverspike’s (1989) seminal
contribution. Next, we describe our study sample and explain how we collected the data. We
then present our analysis and findings, and discuss the contributions and implications of our
study.
CONCEPTUALISING AN ‘OLDER WORKER’
One cannot escape the global interest in the issues surrounding an ageing workforce and ‘older
workers’ more specifically (e.g. Vendramin et al., 2012; Phillipson, 2013). However, specifying
who is (and who is not) an ‘older worker remains elusive’ (Pitt-Catsouphes and Smyer, 2006,
2). Internationally, public policies on workforce ageing typically describe older workers using
the cut-off age markers of either 55 years of age or 65 years of age depending on the policy
context. For example, discussions about the labour force participation of older workers tend to
focus on those aged over 55 [Department of Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (DELSA),
2006; American Association of Retired Persons, 2010]. Kooij et al. (2008) reason that this age
marker is chosen because declines in labour market participation are particularly apparent
among workers aged over 55 in many countries; the so-called ‘tide of early exit’ (Loretto and
White, 2006). Debates about pension reforms and retirement, on the other hand, tend to place
an emphasis on those aged 65 years and over (Evans et al., 1995; OECD, 2005), which largely
coincides with statutory pension provisions taking effect at this age in several countries.
Researchers variously use the threshold of 55 or 65 years of age as a definition (Rupp et al.,
2005) or sometimes use as low as 45 years of age to define older at work (Pitt-Catsouphes and
Smyer, 2006).
Somewhat surprisingly, much of the existing research does not actually offer any explicit
definition of an older worker. Where it does, it tends to rely on the dominant policy age
markers referred to above or references protective employment legislation in the respective
country context of the research. This is problematic not least because, as highlighted by both
Charness et al. (2007) and Finkelstein and Farrell (2007), there remains no established
chronological age at which to define an ‘older worker’. What we are left with is an age range
for older workers that extends from as low as 40 years old through to statutory retirement ages
of between 65 and 68 (Stein and Rocco, 2001; Pitt-Catsouphes and Smyer, 2006). Kite and
Wagner (2004) suggest that the specific age used to delineate an age-based category may matter
less than other factors (such as context or physical manifestations of ageing). We agree with this
as a general point; however, we argue that the specific age used to denote older is highly
significant in the workplace context. Having a broad age range is both unhelpful and also, in

our view, potentially dangerous. Assuming that older workers are somehow a homogenous
group can have serious consequences for the individual and organisation alike. It is unrealistic
to assume that a 40-year-old worker will have similar work values, attributes and expectations
than will a 65 year old. It is similarly dangerous to conceive that managers would or should
ascribe similar work values, attitudes and expectations to workers aged between 40 and 68, and
make work-based decisions about them accordingly (relating especially to their employment,
development or retention). This sets the context for our first research question as follows:
Research Question 1: At what chronological age will decision makers in
organisations define a worker as an ‘older worker’?
There is growing evidence that our social definitions of what constitutes ‘old’ or ‘older’ are
starting to shift. Moulaert and Biggs (2013) point to increasing life expectancies and a greater
ability to lead more active and productive lifestyles throughout the ageing process as some of
the key factors challenging our conceptions of what older constitutes today. Cleveland and Lim
(2007: 110) note that an ‘older worker’ may be difficult to capture in a single chronological age
measure because ‘ageing is viewed as a multidimensional process’ that includes changes that
occur in biological, psychological and social activity over time. Thus, individuals with the same
chronological age may be affected differently by the ageing process and at different stages
(Kooij et al., 2008). Thus, while acknowledging the value of the chronological perspective on
age, increasingly researchers are moving towards more contextualised approaches to defining
age in the work setting.
Sterns and Doverspike’s (1989) conceptualisations of age model is perhaps the best cited
work that offers a differentiated understanding of how age may be considered in the
workplace, and this forms the conceptual framework for our article here. They identify five
conceptualisations of age: chronological, functional, psychosocial, organisational and lifespan
age. Chronological age simply refers to the actual calendar age an individual is; functional age
is viewed in terms of biological changes (physical and mental) that occur in line with increases
in age and that may impact work, that is, health and wellness, physical ability to perform tasks
and cognitive ability; psychosocial age considers both other peoples’ perceptions of the age a
worker is considered to be and a subjective assessment of how old or young the individual
worker perceives him/herself to be. Older could thus relate to how someone feels, thinks or
acts, or how others view him/her reflecting perhaps learned/assumed social norms and
dominant stereotypes about how old s/he is; organisational age refers to perceptions of
workers’ ages based on both the length of time (tenure) that the individual has been with the
organisation, his/her career to date or the age norms within the organisation, while lifespan
age takes into account individuals’ changes in behaviour at different stages across the life cycle,
according to dominant interests and preferences, or personal circumstances such as changes in
family or socio-economic status. Sterns and Doverspike’s work has been revisited in the
intervening years. For example, Cleveland and Shore (1992) proposed that their
conceptualisation of workers’ age model could be separated into person-based age measures
that capture the individual’s perception of self (chronological, functional and subjective age)
and context-based age measures that involve a specific comparison with others or with a group
(organisational age and social age), while Pitt-Catsouphes et al. (2010) suggested that age
conceptualisation in the workplace could include generational age, tenure age and career-stage
age perspectives.
Schalk et al. (2010) provide a very useful depiction of Sterns and Doverspike’s (1989)
categorisations (as shown in Figure 1) and suggest a number of possible indicators for each age
category, ranging from age as an individual personal characteristic on the one hand through to

Figure 1 Schalk et al.’s (2010) extension of Sterns and Doverspike’s (1989) age model
Ageing
Underlying causal changes

Biological, psychological, social and societal changes across time
Type of definition Chronological Functional Psychosocial Organisational Lifespan

Age Age Age Age Age
Possible indicators Calender Health Social or Self Company Home situation

Age Perceptions Tenure
age as an embedded characteristic of the environment on the other. They note that while a
number of studies have explored both the interrelationships between Sterns and Doverspike’s
(1989) conceptualisations, and the relationship between these and individual work-related
outcomes such as job satisfaction, motivation, commitment and well-being, for example
(Cleveland and Shore, 1992; De Lange et al., 2006; Kooij et al., 2008), there remains a dearth of
empirical evidence at the organisational level. We similarly remarked this growing literature
from the individual employees perspective, but could find no evidence from the managerial
stakeholder perspective in organisations. Schalk et al. (2010: 79) further note that much of the
existing work suggests only ‘possible’ indicators of how age is conceptualised in the workplace,
while Kooij et al. (2008: 385) call for greater attention to be given to the operationalisation of
these conceptualisations because psychometric studies on the (relations between) indicators of
the different approaches to measure ageing at work are still lacking.
In an effort to address this empirical deficit, our second research question explores how age
is conceptualised in the workplace by asking organisational decision makers to explain what
factors prompted them to consider someone an ‘older worker’.
Research Question 2: How will decision makers in organisations conceptualise
‘older workers’?
Our objective here is to determine whether decision makers’ responses can be encapsulated
within the existing conceptualisations identified by Sterns and Dovespike or whether any
additional conceptualisations are in evidence.
METHOD
A sample of 1200 organisational decision makers was drawn from small, medium and large
organisations across all Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European

Community-listed industry sectors in Ireland. Organisational decision makers are defined in

our study as managers and supervisors with responsibility for making decisions relating to the
recruitment, selection, promotion, training, development and retention of workers in their
organisations. The participants were invited via e-mail to partake in the study by filling out an
online questionnaire. To ensure that all participants met our definition of decision maker, a list
of filters was included at the outset. Our final sample included completed responses from
N = 407 organisational decision makers, which represents an overall response rate of
34 per cent. Table 1 presents an overview of the key characteristics of our sample according to
their managerial position, chronological age range (for illustrative purposes and for ease of
comparison, we collapsed the respondent ages into 35 years and younger, 36–50 and 51–70),
gender, tenure and industry sector in which they are employed (for ease of comparison, we
split this into manufacturing and services).
Because the goal of this research was to chronologically define an ‘older worker’, and to
explore the rationale underpinning this chronological age marker, two particular questions
were asked. The first question simply asked decision makers to state the age (in years) at which
they considered a worker to be an ‘older worker’. Of the 407 decision makers in our study, 358
(88 per cent) of the respondents answered this question. The second question was completely
open and asked respondents to explain why they chose that particular chronological age to
define a worker as an ‘older worker’. A total of 311 (76 per cent) answered this second question.
We used an extensive code-based, thematic analysis of the open responses that combined
elements of both content analysis (Ryan and Bernard, 2000) and concept mapping (Jackson and
Trochim, 2002), and that were completed in a number of sequential stages. We first created units
of analysis from the text, which are sentences or phrases containing only one concept.
Respondents’ answers were, on average, a short paragraph of between one and three sentences
describing why they defined a worker as an ‘older worker’ at the chronological age that they
had already identified. Each answer was then broken down into separate statements containing
one idea about conceptualising an ‘older worker’. The majority of respondents’ statements
provided just one reason or idea, although there was a small number (n = 14) who provided
two separate reasons, while two respondents listed three reasons. We included all responses
separately, although we noted that those second or third reasons were similar in overall
approach to each other. For example, one decision maker defined an ‘older worker’ as having
‘reached a plateau in their career, it has probably peaked by now and slowing, and they begin
planning for retirement’. As advised by Jackson and Trochim (2002), this statement was
separated into two separate units of ideas – career stage and retirement planning. What
emerged was a total of 335 units ready for coding. The next step in our coding schema involved
re-sorting each unit of analysis into sets of similar statements. We started this stage by utilising
Sterns and Doverspike’s (1989) established conceptualisation of age framework of ‘functional’,
‘psychosocial’, ‘organisational’ and ‘lifespan’ to categorise the statements. We created one
additional set that we termed ‘other’ for all responses that did not fit within this framework.
The researchers made all unitising decisions separately and then performed an interrater
reliability check to confirm the utility of Sterns and Doverspike’s framework. A large majority
of the statements (n = 298) were accommodated easily within the framework. The remaining
‘other’ set was once again re-sorted by organising into subsets of similar statements. Again,
these steps were performed separately and were followed by an interrater reliability check. It
became apparent at this stage that this category contained responses from decision makers who
did not appear to be able to identify a specific reason for the ‘older worker’ age marker that
they had indicated in their answer to the first question. The most typical comments here
included ‘I don’t know really’, ‘that’s just how I feel’ or ‘that to me is an older worker’. Rather

380
TABLE 1 Sample descriptives
Decision maker type N % Age range Gender Position tenure Industry sector
(number of years)
<35 31–50 51–70 Male Female Mean SD Manufacturing Services
years years years (n) (n) (n) (n)

(n) (n) (n)
CEO/president/VP 3 0.7 0 1 2 3 0 10.33 6.506 3 0

Director/MD 22 5.4 6 12 4 20 2 6.09 5.051 5 17
Owner-manager 23 5.7 4 13 6 18 5 9.13 9.426 4 19
General manager 24 5.9 10 9 5 14 10 6.54 6.718 2 22
Plant manager 3 0.7 1 2 0 2 1 2.67 2.082 1 2
HR director 6 1.5 1 3 2 4 23 4.67 5.164 4 2
Functional manager 86 21.1 18 44 24 60 26 5.65 5.110 57 29
HR manager 37 9.1 12 19 6 14 23 5.69 3.373 14 23
Line manager/supervisor 156 38.3 64 70 22 103 53 6.41 4.308 121 35
Other 47 11.5 11 28 8 18 29 7.63 5.608 35 12
407 100 127 201 79 256 151 6.44 5.237 246 161
Total 407 100
CEO, chief executive officer; MD, managing director; SD, standard deviation; VP, vice president.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 24 NO 4, 2014
than group these with the non-respondents to the question, we labelled them as a separate ‘no
specific reason provided’ category. All sets were then given a code and inputted into our data
file for analysis.
RESULTS
As might be expected, responses to the first question asking at what chronological age decision
makers consider a worker to be an ‘older worker’ varied considerably. Participant decision
makers reported that the age at which a worker is considered ‘older’ ranged from 28 to 75 years
of age, with a median of 55 years of age. Specifically, the mean age at which a worker is
perceived as older by decision makers in our sample is 52.40 years (standard deviation = 6.95,
95 per cent confidence interval 51.75, 53.26). An examination of the results, shown in Figure 2,
indicates a bimodal distribution, with the most common indicators of ‘older worker’ being 50
and 55, followed by another spike at 60.
We then explored whether individual decision maker’s demographics, namely chronological
age, gender, job position, organisational tenure or the industry in which they were employed,
had any relationship with their chronological identification of an ‘older worker’. We used a
one-way analysis of variance to explore the impact of age on chronological definitions of an
‘older worker’. There was a significant and positive correlation between decision maker
chronological age (re-categorised into three groups of 35 years and under, 36–50 years and 51+
Figure 2 Chronological age used to define ‘older worker’

years) and the perceived age of an ‘older worker’ such that decision makers aged 35 years and
under were statistically more likely to categorise a worker as ‘older’ at a relatively younger age
(mean = 50.91) than did decision makers over 35 years (mean = 53.11), or those over 50 years
(mean = 53.46). The data show that decision makers’ chronological definitions of age change
gradually as they themselves chronologically age at work. Decision maker gender, position
organisational tenure and industry type were not significant when correlated with the
identified chronological age of an ‘older worker’ age variable.
RATIONALE FOR DETERMINING THE AGE ONE BECOMES ‘OLDER’
Research Question 2 sought explanations for how decision makers conceptualised older
workers in their organisation. Of the 407 individual respondents, a total of 90 failed to answer
this question at all, however, and as indicated earlier in the methods section, because 14
decision makers provided 2 reasons, and a further 2 decision makers provided 3 reasons, the
total number of recorded reasons for this question is 335. Table 2 presents the pattern of
responses in order of frequency cited.
Organisational age
A clear majority of statements (N = 206/61.6 per cent) reflected an organisational age approach
to defining a worker as an ‘older worker’. We identified five distinct within-theme categories
here as follows: (a) ‘planning for retirement’, (b) ‘career-stage’, (c) ‘organisational age norms’,
(d) ‘tenure’ and (e) ‘industry age norms’.
Planning for retirement A quarter of decision makers in our sample (25.4 per cent)
conceptualised the age of an ‘older worker’ as being representative of the age at which
employees begin to prepare for retirement, as evidenced in the following statements:
“The focus for them changes at this stage as they then start to prepare for retirement
and financial security for retirement occupies the mind a bit more . . . the final phase
before retirement.”
“Retirement is around this time and often people have made plans to retire.”
TABLE 2 Frequency of response
Conceptualisations of age # statements % statements
Functional age 26 7.8

Physical age 20 6.0
Age appearance 6 1.8
Psychosocial age 42 12.5
Organisational age 206 61.6
Retirement planning age 85 25.4
Career-stage age 38 11.3
Organisational age norms 32 9.6
Tenure age 30 9.0
Industry age norms 21 6.3
Lifespan age 24 7.2
Don’t know or could not articulate answer 37 11.1
Total 335 100

“This is the typical age for earliest retirement planning in our organisation.”
“Lots of experience, up to 30+ years, a whole lifetime of working really, and they
start planning to retire.”
“Older workers are those with 15 years to retirement age.”
“Older is within 10 years of traditional retirement age.”
Career stage A total of 38 (11.3 per cent) decision makers indicated that they considered a
worker as ‘older’ because they have either reached the last phase of their careers, are nearing
the end of their careers or are not seen to be career active. The following statement are
illustrative here:
“There are three career phases (assuming college attendance): phase 1 = 22 to 35;
phase 2 = 36 to 54; phase 3 = 55+, so 55+ is older.”
“They’re in the last third of the typical career.”
“They are no longer interested in career advancement.”
“At 55, chances of career change or job move decline.”
“. . . by 50 a career path has been well formed if not exhausted and so opportunities
become more limited.”
“Up to that age an employee is thinking of the future and career prospects, after 50
the focus is more on exit strategy.”
“Their career has peaked and is tapering off at this age.”
“This seems to be the age when career progress stalls for most employees (except
those staying the course for ‘the few’ promotion opportunities still available).”
Organisational age norms Here some 32 (9.6 per cent) of the statements reflected that ‘older
workers’ are identifiable relative to the age of their co-workers in the organisation. The
following comments are indicative here:
“. . . because at this age, they are older than the working group in the company.”
“Ahem, good question. Very difficult to answer. I originally put down 60+, but I
changed it when I considered the organisation in which I work.”
“It depends on the individual, their role, their experience, their outlook. It is very
hard to say what is an older employee . . . but I think it really relates to the
comparative ages of colleagues.”
“The average age in this company is approx. 35, so older than that is old.”
“Relative to other employees.”
Tenure age A total of 31 decision makers (9 per cent) conceptualised ‘older’ as associated with
the length of service, or tenure, that a worker holds within the organisation, for example:
“Usually they would have completed long service within the organisation.”
“It’s due to having approx. 30yrs experience in the organisation.”

“This is somewhat arbitrary, but old enough to have more than 20 years work
experience.”
“They’re older because they have been in the company a long time at this age.”
Industry age norms A final 21 statements (6.3 per cent) reflected age norms within the
industry (as distinct from the organisation) as a defining feature of the conceptualisation of an
‘older worker’. Here decision makers noted that workers of a certain age could be defined as
‘older’ because the nature of work in their industry is perceived to be more ‘suited’ to those
who are younger than this age. This perception was especially prevalent in responses from the
retail and hospitality service industries in our study. The following comments are indicative
here:
“The hotel industry is ideally geared towards a younger employee.”
“This is based on my opinion that in the catering industry I would say that it is
more predominantly young people that are working in the sector.”
“Nature of the retail industry, it’s normally very young.”
“This is a reflection of the industry I am in – pub work I feel is suited to a younger

age group and is often just a stepping stone to further employment – those who are
seeking these positions at an older age, I view as having little ambition.”
“Fashion retail is trend led and changes from season to season. It is more directed
at younger people and is therefore more suited to younger employees.”
Psychosocial approach
A total of 42 decision makers (12.5 per cent) made reference to the influence of psychosocial
variables in their conceptualisation of an older worker. Here, respondents believed the age of
an ‘older worker’ was mainly a ‘reflection of society’, or other culturally established norm, as
evidence in the following statements:
“In my mind up to 40 is young, 40 to 55 is middle age and 55+ is older.”
“In society, the age of over 50 is considered older.”
“It seems about where the cultural norm sits when one is 40+ oneself!”
“Because I am currently 51, and I am as motivated as I have been in my 30s and

40s. I suspect I would like to slow down a little bit in about another 10 years –
maybe! In my experience, colleagues I have worked with have tended to slow down
and work less as they approach 60.”
“I was that age when I started working in this institution and I felt ancient!”
Functional age
Conceptualising an ‘older worker’ in terms of functional (physical or mental) ability was
evident in just 26 statements (7.8 per cent). Two particular features are worth highlighting here
– some statements referred specifically to workers’ physical age, while others remarked simply
on workers’ age appearance. The following statements are reflective here:
“They are physically slower.”

“It’s the biological ageing process; workers get older and can’t perform to the same
standards as younger workers.”
“In our business physical fitness is a big role, driving jobs get harder at this age.”
“they actually look older physically.”
“grey hair, means you’re older at work.”
Life-stage age
A total of 24 statements (7.2 per cent) define workers as ‘older workers’ from a life-stage age
perspective. Some statements conceptualised an ‘older worker’ according to their transitions in
and out of life roles:
“Job/company remains the same but they have different priorities (personal) in
what they want to achieve from working e.g. looking for work life balance etc.”
“It’s all downhill from 50 – time to start relaxing and enjoying their experiences.”
“40 really is the start of a new phase in life for most people, with families tending
to be older.”
“At this stage work ambitions may be superseded by home and personal
ambitions.”
We then conducted a one-way between-groups analysis of variance to explore the relationship

between these conceptualisations of age and the chronological age earlier provided to define an
‘older worker’. While the mean ages identified for each of the four broad categorisations of
functional, psychosocial, organisational and life stage were not significant, we did find a
statistically significant difference between a number of the within-theme conceptualisations
delineated earlier: F (11, 298) = 8.975, p < 0.001. Because our stated objective in this article is to
better understand organisational age, we draw attention to the significant findings with respect
to this conceptualisation here. Our analysis shows that the mean chronological age identified
by those who defined an ‘older worker’ in terms of physical age was statistically different from
the within-theme organisational age conceptualisations of career-stage age, organisational age
norms, tenure age and industry age norms. The social age approach was statistically different
from the functional age, retirement planning age and industry age norms. Within the
organisational age conceptualisation, the retirement planning approach was found to be
different from the career, organisational age norms, industry age norms and tenure age
approaches.
In an effort to identify any pattern among the individual decision makers with respect to
their descriptions of ‘older worker’, we explored whether decision maker position, age, gender,
tenure or industry held explanatory power. The only variable that showed a statistical
significance was decision maker position (Table 3).
We collapsed the various categories of decision maker position into strategic, functional
and supervisory roles to facilitate pattern identification. There was no significant difference in
the conceptualisation of age identified by each category. While there was evidence of all four
approaches to conceptualising age being used across all three categories of decision maker,
the organisational age approach, particularly retirement planning, was the most highly
referenced.

386
TABLE 3 Analysis of decision maker responses
Age approach Chronological SD Functional Age Psychosocial Organisational Career stage Organisation Tenure (n) Industry age Lifespan (n) Don’t know
decision maker mean physical age appearance (n) retirement (n) age norms norms (n) (n)
type (n) (n) planning (n) (n)
Strategic level 52.42 10.400 9 0 7 17 7 7 6 7 8 6

CEO/president/VP 46.67 7.638 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0
Director/MD 51.90 9.148 2 0 4 3 4 2 1 2 0 2
Owner-manager 52.48 11.927 4 0 2 4 1 0 2 3 2 2
General manager 53.23 11.674 2 0 0 6 1 4 3 2 3 2
Plant manager 51.67 7.638 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 0
HR director 54.33 8.430 0 0 1 3 0 1 0 0 0 0
Functional level 53.20 6.009 6 2 18 28 17 10 8 4 4 12
Functional manager 52.83 6.280 3 0 12 19 11 8 6 4 3 8
HR manager 54.06 5.309 3 1 6 9 6 2 2 0 1 4
Supervisory level 51.68 6.696 4 2 12 33 12 13 13 9 11 11
Line manager/ 51.68 6.696 4 2 12 33 12 13 13 9 11 11
supervisor
Other 53.53 5.491 1 3 5 7 2 2 3 1 1 8
Total 52.50 7.354 20 6 42 85 38 32 30 21 24 37
CEO, chief executive officer; MD, managing director; SD, standard deviation; VP, vice president.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 24 NO 4, 2014
DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
It is clear that organisations and policy makers alike are focusing more attention on
developing and implementing strategies to foster continued utilisation of older employees.
Morris and Venkatesh (2000) caution, however, that management strategies that treat the
workforce as a monolithic entity are likely to fail – and our evidence here suggests that this
is particularly the case for ‘older worker’ cohorts. The results presented in this study
represent an important empirically derived understanding of the chronological term ‘older
worker’ from the perspective of organisational decision makers. Much of the existing
research that focuses on ‘older workers’ either predefines a specific calendar age for an older
worker, varying from 40 to 75 years of age (Stein and Rocco, 2001), or, in the absence of a
definition, appears to infer that ‘older workers’ represent a rather homogenous grouping.
The findings of this study clearly illustrate that this is not the case. While the results here
indicate some peaking at 55 and again at 60 years, decision makers in this study clearly
identify an ‘older worker’ as an employee who has reached the age of 52 years (mean age
of 52.4 years). The results further highlight a sliding scale of ‘older’ from 28 to 75 years of
age, which is a much wider range for ‘older worker’ than the variations of between 40 and
75 years of age used to define an ‘older worker’ in previous studies (Pitt-Catsouphes and
Smyer, 2006). This suggests to us that workers are being considered ‘older’ at an increasingly
younger age than we might have assumed and at a considerably younger chronological age
than even social norms might indicate. This is important because it calls into question the
usefulness of existing social cut-offs of 55 years of age and older that are used to define
older workers in many labour force participation policies (DELSA, 2006; American
Association of Retired Persons, 2010) and the more distant legal age cut-offs of 65 years of
age used to define older workers in discussions about retirement and pension reforms
(OECD, 2005). It is important to note that the identification of a chronological age for an
‘older worker’ was found to differ according to the chronological age of the decision maker
such that managers and supervisors over the age of 35 were statistically more likely to
identify a worker as older at a slightly older chronological age than did those under the age
of 35. This potentially lends credence to Hassell and Perrewe’s (1995) and Chiu et al.’s (2001)
findings that (chronologically) ‘older’ employers hold more positive stereotypes towards
older workers than (chronologically) ‘younger’ employers. At the very least, we know that
employees of different ages conceptualise ‘older’ in different ways.
Turning to the reasons provided for considering a worker to be older at 52, we can see that
decision makers overwhelmingly use a strong organisational age approach to describing an
‘older worker’. Here managers and supervisors primarily rationalise ‘older’ in terms of their
perceiving employees at this age to be planning for retirement, to have reached the pinnacle of
their career or for simply being older than the prevailing organisational or industry norm. The
fact that that individual workers are assumed to have reached their career potential at the age
of 52 or are preoccupied with organisational exit at least 15 years prior to statutory retirement
age (in Ireland at least) has implications for policy makers and managers alike, as it calls for
a revised look at how we support longevity in organisations and a reconsideration of the
prevailing assumptions that are held about the needs and motivations of workers as they age
in an organisation. It also calls into question our assumptions about prevailing stereotypes
about older workers. For example, McEvoy and Blahna’s (2001) contention that managers hold
negative stereotypes about older workers involving seeing them as high-cost, inflexible,
out-of-date liabilities takes on additional significance if one substitutes the term ‘older worker’
for ‘a 52-year-old worker’. Billett et al. (2011) have recently argued for a de-emphasisation of the

term ‘older worker’ altogether if we are to move to develop policies and practices to retain and
sustain workers beyond even the age of 45.
The reflected preoccupation with retirement and/or assumption that workers of a certain age
are planning for retirement in this study should not be overly surprising to us. While Pasupathi
and Löckenhoff (2002: 207) have noted that mandatory retirement laws are perhaps the most
glaring example of discrimination based on age that currently exist in the workplace, Phillipson
(2013) has reflected that the ending of work at 60 or 65 (or even earlier) has become embedded
in human resource policies throughout the past two decades or more. Naegele and Walker (2006)
cautions that the expansion of early retirement and early exit has had a number of particular
consequences, not least of which has been the devaluing of the role of older people in the labour
market to the extent that older workers are perceived as an economic ‘burden’ and thereby
exacerbating age discrimination in the workplace. Hedge (2009) argues that it is important to
continue to challenge myths, stereotypes and age norms that are detrimental to facilitating a more
age diverse workplace. Stein and Rocco (2001) suggest that an overhaul of current thinking about
the ageing worker and services to ameliorate barriers to employment are vital, while Liebig (1988)
calls for managers to be trained to recognise the potential for bias (within themselves as well as
in others) and how to prevent it before it impacts decisions. Our evidence here suggests that the
consideration of ‘older’ at 52 may give added credence to this call.
From a theoretical perspective, our evidence in this study extends Sterns and Doverspike’s
(1989) conceptualisation of age framework in two particular ways. Our data suggest that, while
organisational decision makers reflect a number of often overlapping perspectives in their
identification of a worker as ‘older’, the organisational age approach is confirmed as by far the
most common approach utilised. In addition, the data clearly show a larger, conceptually and
empirically distinct range of organisational perspectives than were identified in the original
framework. So, while the data support the existence of tenure, career stage and organisational
norms, we further found clear evidence of the dominance of retirement planning and industry
norms in determining an ‘older worker’. This may suggest that managers and supervisors in
this study are reflecting shared beliefs about age rather than responding to actual ages. This
may also account for the discrepancy between describing someone as ‘older’ at 52 and
explaining this in terms of their planning for retirement.
Building on Schalk et al.’s (2010) detailed depiction of Sterns and Doverspike’s (1989)
existing age conceptualisations, we offer an empirically derived extension of approaches to
conceptualising age in the workplace (Figure 3).
Turning to implications for policy and practice arising from our research, we offer a number
of suggestions. Brewer et al. (1981) earlier noted that that ‘elder persons’ may be too large a
category to capture attitudes towards older adults accurately, and, based on our results here,
we suggest that the ‘older worker’ categorisation may be likewise too broad to accurately
capture this heterogeneous work cohort. Specifically, we suggest that measurement of attitudes
towards this group is hampered by existing overly broad or loosely defined conceptualisations,
and so are likely to yield contradictory findings because respondents will think of different
subgroups while making any assessments. If we look to the reasons proffered for describing
someone as an ‘older worker’ here, we can readily see that contextual issues associated with
work (such as pre-retirement, career stage, organisation or industry norms), rather than actual
chronological age, represent a more meaningful way of understanding age in the workplace.
This requires organisational managers to reconsider what they identify as significant age
markers in terms of organisational career because this will clearly impact decisions relating to
development, work allocation and promotion. There is also the possibility that, even
unwittingly, discriminatory age bias influences important decisions in this respect. Leisink and

Figure 3 Extended age model
Ageing and the ‘Older Worker’
Underlying Causal
Changes
Biological, psychological, social and societal changes across time
Type of Ageing Definition Chronological Functional Psychosocial Organisational Lifespan

Age Age Age Age Age
Social and Self

‘Older Worker’ Calendar Perceptions Changing
Conceptualisation of Age Priorities
Ageing Outside the
Retirement
Organisational Workplace
Physical Age Planning Age
Age Norms
Age Appearance
Tenure Age
Industry Age
Norms
Career-Stage
Age
Chronological Age
Associated with ‘Older
Worker’ Concept 52 58 53 52 56 51 50 49 45 52
Knies (2011) underline the essential role that front-line managers play in human resource
practices for older workers. Midtsundstad (2011) argues that active ageing policies are
associated with organisations with a demonstrated focus on HRM to combat early retirement
cultures. Further, the creation of ‘age-aware’ policies, practices and training that challenge latent
negative conceptualisations and prevent them from affecting decision about older workers is
recommended.
Moore (1996) noted that older workers face considerable challenges in remaining in work
and finding new employment when displaced, which Golub et al. (2002) suggest is reflective of
a dominant paradigm whereby comparisons between young and old are perceived as
decrements rather than simply as differences. Moulaert and Biggs (2013) suggest that this social
construction of old age inevitably excludes older people (i.e. through compulsory retirement)
and thereby condemns them to poverty and institutionalisation. Hedge (2009: 106) similarly
notes that that myths and stereotypes about ageing workers are often so ingrained in an
organisation’s psyche that a strong commitment and follow-through from management is
critical to any effort to dislodge them. While macro-level policies and legislation can serve to
persuade or even mandate particular organisational policies, they cannot compel positive
attitudes and behaviour towards older workers or ensure the valuing of what Dess and Shaw
(2001) term as the extensive human and social capital held by older workers. The HRM
challenge lies in finding ways of recognising and using this extensive capital for the mutual
benefit of worker and organisation alike.

LIMITATIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
First, one of the limitations of this study is its cross-sectional design, and while appropriate
and illuminative in the context of this research, longitudinal research would allow a detailed
exploration of the concept of age in the workplace over time. Given our findings here, that
decision makers aged under 35 differed significantly from those aged between 36 and 50 in
terms of their chronological definition of an ‘older worker’, one particularly interesting
avenue, we believe, would be to consider whether, and more importantly, why decision
makers’ conceptualisations of age change as they age themselves, chronologically, at work.
Second, 90 respondents in our sample did not provide a reason for choosing the
chronological age at which they defined a worker as ‘older’, while a further 37 were unable
to articulate their reason other than comments such as ‘that’s old to me’, ‘it’s a fact’ or ‘that
is my perception of an older worker’. We suggest that in-depth case study research that
takes into account the specific policies and practices in organisations may further facilitate
our understanding of the older worker concept. Third, while not significant, our findings do
demonstrate some differences in how strategic-level decision makers (in this case, Chief
Executive Officers) define ‘older workers’ when compared with decision makers in the HR
function. Future research should further explore if, and why, decision makers at various
levels of the organisation conceptualise workers differently according to their age.
Additionally, research that makes comparisons across national contexts may be particularly
helpful, especially considering whether differences in conceptualisations of age at work may
be attributed to cultural norms and values. Finally, while our focus on the definition of
‘older workers’ here is exceptionally important in today’s workplace, exploring how
‘younger workers’ and indeed ‘middle-aged’ workers are defined and conceptualised will be
important in facilitating an age diverse workforce.
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Who Is Considered An Older Worker'? Extending Our Conceptualisation of Older' From An Organisational Decision Maker Perspective

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Who is considered an ‘older worker’? Extending

374 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 24 NO 4, 2014

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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to date. We show that previously suggested ‘possible’ conceptualisations of ageing are

CONCEPTUALISING AN ‘OLDER WORKER’

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Underlying causal changes

Type of definition Chronological Functional Psychosocial Organisational Lifespan

Possible indicators Calender Health Social or Self Company Home situation

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Community-listed industry sectors in Ireland. Organisational decision makers are defined in

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years years years (n) (n) (n) (n)

CEO/president/VP 3 0.7 0 1 2 3 0 10.33 6.506 3 0

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Figure 2 Chronological age used to define ‘older worker’

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RATIONALE FOR DETERMINING THE AGE ONE BECOMES ‘OLDER’

TABLE 2 Frequency of response

Conceptualisations of age # statements % statements

Functional age 26 7.8

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“Older workers are those with 15 years to retirement age.”

“Older is within 10 years of traditional retirement age.”

“They’re in the last third of the typical career.”

“They are no longer interested in career advancement.”

“At 55, chances of career change or job move decline.”

“Their career has peaked and is tapering off at this age.”

“Relative to other employees.”

“It’s due to having approx. 30yrs experience in the organisation.”

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“Nature of the retail industry, it’s normally very young.”

“This is a reflection of the industry I am in – pub work I feel is suited to a younger

“In society, the age of over 50 is considered older.”

“Because I am currently 51, and I am as motivated as I have been in my 30s and

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“they actually look older physically.”

“grey hair, means you’re older at work.”

We then conducted a one-way between-groups analysis of variance to explore the relationship

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Strategic level 52.42 10.400 9 0 7 17 7 7 6 7 8 6

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DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

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Figure 3 Extended age model

Ageing and the ‘Older Worker’

Biological, psychological, social and societal changes across time