Middle ageism: when social climate and perceived employability relate to attitudes and intent to hire middle-aged employees

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-09-2021-0234
• Published date: 24 August 2022
• Date: 24 August 2022
• Pages: 70-86
• Subject Matter: HR & organizational behaviour,Employment law,Diversity,equality,inclusion
• Author: Galy Binyamin,Yael Brender-Ilan

Middle ageism: when social climate

and perceived employability relate

to attitudes and intent to hire

middle-aged employees

Galy Binyamin and Yael Brender-Ilan

Department of Economics and Business Management, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel

Abstract

Purpose –As the global workforce ages, organizations face unprecedented challenges, especially managing

effective communication between generations. The phenomenon of middle ageism (i.e. discriminating against

middle-aged employees based on their age) has become more prevalent. The authors examined how contextual

settings and communication affect attitudes toward middle-aged employees and hiring intentions.

Design/methodology/approach –Data were collected from 537 employees from various organizations, via

questionnaires. The moderated mediation model was analyzed using Hayes’PROCESS models.

Findings –Results showed that attitudes toward middle-aged employees mediated the relationship between

social climate of shared codes and language and hiring intentions. Social climate was positively related to

attitudes toward their adaptability, but negatively to attitudes toward their ability. Also, decision-makers’own

perceived employability moderated the relationship between attitudes toward employees’adaptability and

hiring intentions, and the indirect relationship between social climate and hiring intentions.

Practical implications –Since age diversity is expected to become one of the most dominant diversity

classificationsin the very near future, coping with middle ageism constitutes a growing challenge for managers

and HR staff. The findings indicate that in order to enhance sustainable employment and prevent

discrimination, organizations need not only maintain a supportive climate for older employees, as an

affirmative action, but also ensure better communication in terms of sharing codes and language that enhance

positive attitudes toward middle-aged colleagues.

Originality/value –In an era where diversity and inclusion dominate human resource management decision

making, this study contributes to the literature on the underexplored domain of age diversity.

Keywords Social climate, Relational communication, Attitudes, Middle-aged employees, Perceived

employability, Intent to hire, Moderated mediation model, Ageism, Older employees, Stereotypes, Age

discrimination, Diversity

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

As life expectancy increases, older workers have become a more dominant group in the labor

market. Age has become a component of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in

organizations to support strategy of talent management, workforce planning, and strategic

HR recruitment (Douglas and Roberts. 2020). Changes in legislation, such as extending the

retirement age, help to accommodate their integration into the workforce and increase their

subjective well-being and longevity (Lozano and Sol

e-Aur

o, 2021;Pilipiec et al., 2021). Also,

changes in the labor market regarding pensions, taxes, and educational attainment have

increased their participation in the labor market (Grigoli et al., 2022).

However, managing the inevitable generational diversity is one of the biggest challenges

managers face in contemporary organizations (e.g. Meinich and Sang, 2018). Most employers

are not yet ready to accommodate the aging workforce (Van Dalen et al., 2009). They make

little effort to recruit or re-integrate older workers [1] despite the benefits of employing them,

EDI

42,1

70

The order of authors is alphabetical.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm

Received 17 September 2021

Revised 11 April 2022

Accepted 21 July 2022

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 42 No. 1, 2023

pp. 70-86

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-09-2021-0234

and they offer them very few opportunities for training, development, and promotion (e.g.

Billett et al., 2011;Yeung et al., 2021).

Middle ageism (Gullette, 1998), discriminating against middle-aged employees (ages 45–

60) based on their age, is a relatively new and subtle phenomenon, and thus attracted

scholarly attention worldwide (e.g. Kulik et al., 2016;Chiu et al., 2001;Van Dalen et al., 2009).

“Age is likely to be used inthe next century as race and gender have been [...]as another way

of creating subjective inferiority”(Gullette, 1998, p. 264). However, there is little discussion

focusing on middle-aged employees in organizational contexts (Heilmann, 2017).

Douglas and Roberts (2020) argued that rather than training managers on the ways to

manage their older workers, organizations need a greater emphasis on overcoming and

changing the negative attitudes toward older employees. Given the coexistence of multiple

generations in the workplaceand the need for collaboration and effective work,organizations

should establishcommon ground that mitigates differences in style and perceptions.This can

be facilitatedby developing a shared language that fosters a common understandingamongst

employees, and thus enablesthem to communicate and collaborate more effectively(Thomas

and McDonagh, 2013). Thus, a sharedlanguage is recognized as social capital and a valuable

asset within organizations(Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998), especially in a diversifiedworkforce.

In answering the call to address the context in which stereotypes against older workers

are socially constructed (Meinich and Sang, 2018;Ng and Feldman, 2012), we aim to

contribute to nurturing a positive environment for inter-generational relationships at work,

reducing middle ageism and developing positive attitudes toward middle-aged workers.

Since negative age stereotypes are often used as justifications for discriminating against

older workers in developing them in organizations (Ng and Feldman, 2012;Heilmann, 2017)

and hiring biases have not received much attention in organizational research (Fasbender

and Wang, 2017;Loretto and White, 2006), we hypothesized that attitudes toward middle-

aged employees are developed in a social climate of shared codes and language and affect

intentions to hire these employees.

Moreover, although attitudes are socially constructed, they are also influenced by

individuals’own experience and affect (Millar and Tesser, 1989). Thus, we reason that

organizational members view middle-aged employees through their own situation in the

labor market. We suggest that middle ageism is influenced by the decision-maker’s

perceptions of their own employability. That is, positive attitudes toward middle-aged

employees may better predict intentions to hire them for those who perceive their own

employability as higher. We also hypothesized that these mediated relationships are

moderated by the respondents’perception of their own employability in the labor market.

The conceptual model is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

The conceptual model

Social climate

and middle

ageism in

hiring

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