Is age an issue? Psychosocial differences in perceived older workers’ work (un)adaptability, effectiveness, and workplace age discrimination

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and correlations between perceived work unadaptability, work adaptability, work effectiveness and workplace age discrimination.

	M	SD	1	2	3	4
1. Unadaptability	2.732	1.0157	(.865)	.097	−.183**	.325**
2. Adaptability	3.378	.989		(.641)	.135**	.029
3. Work effectiveness	3.413	.657			(.595)	−.021
4. Workplace age discrimination	1.854	.913				(.946)

* p < .05 level; ** p < .01.

Cronbach’s alpha in diagonal.

Work unadaptability, work adaptability, work effectiveness, and workplace age discrimination are item mean scores.

Table 2. Perceived work unadaptability, work adaptability, work effectiveness, and workplace age discrimination: descriptives and univariate tests.

	Unadaptability	Adaptability	Work effectiveness
Variable/Statement	Mean (SD)	Mean (SD)	Mean (SD)	Workplace age discrimination
Age category
18 – 30	2.600 (.929)	3.081 (.980) a	2.771 (1.017) a	1.617 (.772) a
31 – 49	2.721 (.993)	3.420 (.980) b	2.891 (.821) a	1.820 (.897) a
> 50	2.864 (1.108)	3.574 (1.019) b	3.148 (.949) b	2.114 (.990) b
	F (440) = 2.138; p = .119 η^2 = .009	F (440) = 8.354; p = .000 η^2 = .036	F (440) = 5.694; p = .004 η^2 = .025	F (440) = 9.633; p = .000 η^2 = .042
Gender
Female	2.693 (1.010)	3.367 (1.014)	3.414 (.691)	1.837 (.919)
Male	2.790 (1.019)	3.388 (.942)	3.416 (.594)	1.890 (.906)
	t (440) = −.972; p = .332	t (440) = −.216; p = .829	t (440) = −.024; p = .980	t (440) = −.581; p = .562
Education level
Compulsory	2.734 (1.107)	3.476 (1.025)	3.250 (.859)	2.120 (.960) a
High school	2.711 (.979)	3.294 (.967)	3.378 (.528)	1.664 (.791) b
Higher education	2.780 (.943)	3.407 (.950)	3.414 (.468)	1.793 (.952) b
	F (440) = .156; p = .856 η^2 = .001	F (440) = 1.464; p = .232 η^2 = .007	F (440) = .507; p = .603 η^2 = .002	F (440) = 11.232; p = .000 η^2 = .049
Sector
Public	2.827 (1.054)	3.414 (.959)	3.411 (.541)	1.855 (.931)
Private	2.699 (1.004)	3.368 (.999)	3.398 (.567)	1.823 (.904)
	t (440) = 1.194; p = .233	t (440) = .447; p = .655	t (440) = .220; p = .826	t (440) = .328; p = .743

Measures marked with different letters differ statistically between age categories, at the level of α < .05, according to the Tukey HSD test.