Psychosocial work determinants of older adults' participation in the job market: protocol for a scoping review of quantitative longitudinal studies.

Abstract

Background: More than one-third of the population in developed countries is aged 50 and older (hereafter older adults), and this proportion has been increasing every year. Aging is associated with labor shortages which places a large socioeconomic stress on individuals, organizations, and governments. Evidence on the influences of psychosocial factors in older workers mostly focuses on adverse health outcomes and early retirement, with little or no evidence of their influences on other aspects or assessments of older adults' participation in the job market. In this work, we aim to describe existing quantitative longitudinal studies on the relationship between psychosocial work factors and older adult's participation in the job market, and to explore how the outcome is operationalized in existing studies on this topic.

Methods: The scoping review frameworks developed by the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) and Levac and colleagues will guide this study. We will perform a comprehensive search for eligible publications in the followingdatabases: MEDLINE, AgeLine, CINAHL, PsycInfo, SCOPUS, ProQuest One Business, SOCindex, Abstracts in Social Gerontology, and Social Works Abstract. This work will focus on the job-demand-control-support, the effort-reward imbalance, the organizational justice, three renowned theretical models, while paying attention to other work risk factors measured in selected studies. Studies involving older adults of 50 years old or more and published in English or French will be considered, regardless of publication date. Abstracts, full-text screening, and data extraction will be performed independently by two trained reviewers using standard methodology. While sorting studies, we will complete a narrative synthesis of findings considering, when possible, sex and gender.

Discussion: While rigorous reviews are increasingly being recommended for decision-making in organizational and political guidelines, providing an overview of psychosocial work factors associated with older adult's participation in the job market is a crucial start point. This scoping review will contribute to the understanding of how to define and assess participation in the job market and its work-related determinants in older adults. Our findings may also help to prioritize if and what future systematic reviews on this topic should focus on.

Systematic review registration: Submitted in Open Science Framework on 07-10-2023.