As societies across the developed world age, it’s increasingly important that older people are not ostracized from the workforce.  Alas, new research from the University of Basel suggests that’s precisely what is happening.

The paper reveals that workers over 50 years of age can often feel excluded from the workplace, and suffer from a lack of motivation as a result.  This can be especially so if their cognitive abilities begin to decline as they age.

Stereotyping is common across the age range, but the report highlights how rampant it is against older people, whether it’s their perceived lack of competence or general forgetfulness.  If older people internalize some of these stereotypes, it has a profound impact on their sense of belonging in the workplace.  This reduces their wellbeing, and raises the likelihood of them leaving work altogether and entering early retirement.

Changing performance

The paper also argues that older workers are not only faced with negative stereotypes about their mental abilities, but that these accusations can often be internalized and the belief that cognitive ability declines is adopted.  The research cites previous work highlighting how this internalization can result in an actual decline in performance.

This also has a significant impact on the emotional wellbeing of older employees, as they begin to feel insecure in their work, and like they don’t really belong any more.  This was a consistent finding across four different online experiments involving older workers from numerous professions.

This manifested itself in a reduction in social contact with colleagues, and a general withdrawing from social activity more generally, with the decline in these relationships further harming both the effectiveness and wellbeing of the older worker.

“Fewer negative age stereotypes would not only enable more older employees to maintain fulfilling social contacts in the workplace,” the researchers conclude. The professional potential of older employees could also be better capitalized: “This could, in turn, contribute to solution of economic and social challenges in connection with the latest demographic developments.”