Too old for the job? Investigating tools for increasing older adult participation in the workforce.

Despite an ageing workforce, older workers face significant challenges resulting from routine, and socially acceptable workplace ageism. Early retirements and employment barriers that result from this ageism are expected to place heavy pressures on labour supplies and social security systems in many countries over the coming years. This is especially unfortunate given the organisational performance benefits workplace age diversity can provide. Across three research streams, this thesis draws on social psychology and judgement and decision-making literatures to understand how we might create longer working lives, from employment to retention. The first stream examines if a choice bundling intervention shown to increase gender diversity can successfully increase age diversity in selection decisions. Across four preregistered experiments (N = 2,624), I evidence bias against older job candidates in hiring decisions and demonstrate that choice bundling shown to be effective in increasing the selection of women candidates, fails to increase the selection of older candidates. The second stream explores the role of competition-based incentives on hiring decisions. Across two preregistered experiments (N = 800), I investigate if competition moderates age discrimination in selection decisions. The results show limited evidence that competition affects bias in selection decisions. In the third and final stream of research, I aim to understand the relationship between the intergenerational diversity climate perceived by older workers in their organisation and their retirement intentions. In two pre-registered studies of workers aged between 40 and 75 years (N = 375), I find that older workers who perceived a more positive intergenerational climate at their workplace had lower intention to retire early, but not greater intention to continue working beyond retirement age. I discuss the theoretical implications and the need for greater understanding of age as a diversity characteristic to support the design of interventions that meet the challenges of an ageing workforce.