Dorien Kooij

Older workers motivation to continue to work: five meanings of age: A conceptual review

Purpose: Little is known about the motivation for older workers to work and to remain active in the labor market. Research on age and motivation is limited and, moreover, conceptually diverse. In this study, we address age-related factors that influence the work motivation of older workers. More specifically, we examine how various conceptualizations of the age factor affect the direction and termination of the motivation to continue to work of older workers. Methodology: A literature review of age-related factors and motivation to continue to work. Findings: Results from 24 empirical and 9 conceptual studies indicate that most age-related factors can have a negative impact on the motivation to continue to work of older people. These findings suggest that age-related factors are important in understanding older workers’ motivation to continue to work and that further research is needed to more fully understand the underlying processes that govern how these age-related factors influence the motivation to continue to work. Research limitations / implications: Based on the aforementioned findings, we were able to formulate a research agenda for future research, namely: 1) a need for a meta-analysis on age and motivation to determine the actual effect sizes, 2) additional theoretical attention to the underlying age-related processes, 3) more psychometric studies examining the operationalization and measurement of the age-related variables, and 4) additional empirical research on age-related variables and motivation. Practical implications: Age-related factors identified in this study, such as declining health and career plateaus, should be addressed by HRM policies. HRM practices that could motivate older workers to continue to work include ergonomic adjustments and continuous career development. Originality / value of paper: Research on age and motivation is limited and conceptually diverse. This paper is one of the first studies to explore the relations between different conceptualizations of age and motivation.

Moving European research on work and ageing forward: Overview and agenda

This paper summarizes the state of affairs of European research on ageing and work. After a close inspection of the age construct, an overview is presented of research in four areas: the relationship between age and HR-policies, early retirement, age and performance/employability, age and health/well-being. The overview results in a research agenda on work and ageing and in recommendations for practice.

Proactivity, job characteristics, and engagement: a longitudinal study

Purpose – This paper sets out to examine proactive personality in relation to job demands, job resources and engagement.Design/methodology/approach – The current study employed a two‐wave complete panel study among 794 Dutch government employees. Based upon the Job Demands‐Resources (JD‐R) model, previous studies, job crafting theories, and Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, hypotheses on the associations of proactive personality with job demands, resources, and engagement were developed.Findings – Analyses revealed that proactive personality was associated with an increase in engagement 18 months later. Moreover, proactive employees perceiving high social support reported the highest levels of engagement over time.Research limitations/implications – A first shortcoming is that proactive personality was only measured at one point in time, which restricted the testing of causal relationships of proactive personality with engagement. Second, this study only measured engagement as outcome measure and th...

Sustainability in the second half of the career

Because of demographic workforce changes, the relative number of employees in the second half of their career (from mid-career to retirement) will grow substantially in the near future. Therefore, sustainability, or maintaining health, performance, motivation and well-being in the second career half is an important topic for employees and for employers as well. Moreover, since the proportion of women in the workforce in the second phase of the career is increasing, the problems of older working women need special attention. The chapter highlights specific issues that are prominent in the second career half, such as the differences in motives, career perspectives, the role of stereotypes, and health issues, especially for women. In addition, the chapter provides suggestions on how to improve sustainability in the second career half for both employees and employers. Maintaining a good fit between work and the changing needs of the employee requires employees to take an active role, as well as the availability of HR practices that facilitate this and provide opportunities for differentiation in career wishes and gender-specific preferences, and that counteract the stereotypical but incorrect view that older workers are less productive.