THE RELEVANCE OF ALTERNATIVE AGE CONCEPTS FOR LATE CAREER EMPLOYEES

THE RELEVANCE OF ALTERNATIVE AGE CONCEPTS FOR LATE CAREER EMPLOYEES N. Nagy, D. Spurk, A. Hirschi, University of Bern, Bern, SwitzerlandThe aim of this contribution is to investigate the influence of alternative age concepts (relative age, age stereotypes, subjective age) on career satisfaction and life satisfaction of older employees. We tested our hypotheses with latent structural equation modeling on a sample of 548 participants, aged 50 and over, at three measurement points. As our results show, different aspects and perceptions of time and aging compared to chronological age can influence employee behavior and attitudes. Our research findings show that subjective age relates to career satisfaction via job crafting within older workers, after controlling for chronological age. These findings can be of great value regarding that subjective age is a psychological variable that can be influenced and thus provides fruitful avenues for further research as well as career counseling in order to promote and enable a successful and sustainable career throughout the whole lifespan of an individual.