Organizational Age Scale: New Lenses to Assess the Ageing of Workers

Abstract

Few studies have focused on the aging process within the specific context of organizations (Thomas et al., 2014), due to a lack of adequate measures to assess who is an older worker and on what basis do we define such a worker. This paper introduces such a measure, namely the Organizational Age Scale (OAS) comprised of subjective age-related indicators stemming from the work context (Sterns & Doverspike, 1989; McCarthy et al., 2014; Kooij et al., 2008). More specifically, the OAS measures the individual’s perception of his-her own aging as a worker along five dimensions: obsolescence, age norms, career stage, time remaining in the workplace and opportunities for professional development. Such a tool helps identifies workers at risk of embodying negative age-based stereotypes and thus may counter the negative consequences that can result from self-ageism.