Intergroup predictors of older workers' attitudes towards work and early exit

Abstract

This study investigated the role of intergroup processes in older workers' attitudes towards work and early exit from the workplace. Specifically, the relationships between four intergroup variables (cognitive and affective identification with older workers as a group, permeability of retirees' group boundaries, and permeability of younger workers' group boundaries) derived from Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and four older workers' attitudes (early exit intention, affective organizational commitment, psychological disengagement, and competition with younger workers) were examined using a sample of 152 45- to 59-year-old Belgian workers. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that intergroup predictors accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in each of the four older workers' attitudes after some personal and organizational variables had been held constant. Most notably, cognitive identification with older workers as a group was found to be positively related to early exit intention, whereas permeability of younger workers' group boundaries had a positive relationship to affective organizational commitment, and a negative relationship to psychological disengagement and to competition with younger workers. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords:

• Older workers
• Early retirement
• Work-related attitudes
• Social identity

Acknowledgments

This research benefited from a fund by the “Institut wallon de l'Evaluation, de la Prospective et de la Statistique” (IWEPS), another fund by the “Communauté Française” (“Ministre de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche scientifique et des relations internationals”), and European Social Funds (ESF) for “Objectif 1-Hainaut” to Mathieu Gaillard and Donatienne Desmette. We would like to thank Pierre Feyereisen, Mike Friedman, Tim Potter, Brigit Schyns, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this article. We also thank David Bourguignon, Ginette Herman, and Georges Liénard for their great help throughout this research, and Michel Renard and his colleagues of the Belgian trade union CNE for their assistance in data collection.

Notes

¹As suggested by previous research (e.g., Talaga & Beehr, 1995), the partner's work/retirement status was measured. Only 13 participants out of the 121 who were married or living with a partner indicated that their partner was retired. The low amount of participants whose the partner was retired made impossible to conduct any meaningful analyses including this variable.

²These measures were perceived health, expected financial resources, physical job strains, autonomy in job tasks, retiree permeability, age-related permeability, cognitive identification, affective identification, early exit intention, affective organizational commitment, psychological disengagement, and competition with younger workers.