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What Is Old at Work? Moving Past Chronological Age

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The Palgrave Handbook of Age Diversity and Work

Abstract

What is your age? How old or young do you feel? How old or young are you in relation to your peers, co-workers, or supervisor? At what age, or stage, does older age begin? From the time we can talk, our age is a salient personal characteristic with significant ramifications for others and ourselves in school, at work, socially, and at home. According to one of the broadest surveys gauging US views on ageing, the older people become, the younger (relative to their chronological age) they feel and the more likely they perceive “old age” as starting later in life (Taylor 2009). Similar results were found using a Japanese sample, again demonstrating that individuals report feeling subjectively younger than their chronological age (Hatta et al. 2010). In fact, Barak (2009) found subjective age to consistently be younger than chronological age across 18 different countries. Importantly, not only does there appear to be a gap between actual chronological age and the age people feel, this gap between chronological age and felt age increases with one’s age. Therefore, one’s chronological age is just one factor in determining our perceptions of age.

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  1. Colorado State University, Colorado, USA

    Jeanette N. Cleveland & Madison Hanscom

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  1. Jeanette N. Cleveland
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  1. Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield University, Bedford, United Kingdom

    Emma Parry

  2. Department of Personnel and Employment Relations, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

    Jean McCarthy

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Cleveland, J.N., Hanscom, M. (2017). What Is Old at Work? Moving Past Chronological Age. In: Parry, E., McCarthy, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Age Diversity and Work. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46781-2_2

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