In European nations, the aging of the workforce is a major issue which is increasingly addressed both in national and organizational policies in order to sustain older workers' employability and to encourage longer working lives. Particularly older workers' employability can be viewed an important issue as this has the potential to motivate them for their work and change their intention to retire. Based on lifespan development theories and Van der Heijden's ‘employability enhancement model’, this paper develops and tests an age-moderated mediation model (which refers to the processes that we want to test in this model), linking older workers' (55 years old and over) perceptions of job support for learning (job-related factor) and perceptions of negative age stereotypes on productivity (organizational factor), on the one hand, and their intention to retire, on the other hand, via their participation in employability enhancing activities, being the mediator in our model. A total of 2,082 workers aged 55 years and above were included in the analyses. Results revealed that the two proposed relationships between the predictors and intention to retire were mediated by participation in employability enhancing activities, reflecting two mechanisms through which work context affects intention to retire (namely ‘a gain spiral and a loss spiral’). Multi-Group SEM analyses, distinguishing between two age groups (55–60 and 61–65 years old), revealed different paths for the two distinguished groups of older workers. Employability mediated the relationship between perceptions of job support for learning and intention to retire in both age groups, whereas it only mediated the relationship between perceptions of negative age stereotypes and intention to retire in the 55–60 group. From our empirical study, we may conclude that employability is an important factor in the light of older workers' intention to retire. In order to motivate this category of workers to participate in employability enhancing activities and to work longer, negative age stereotypes need to be combated. In addition, creating job support for learning over the lifespan is also an important HR practice to be implemented in nowadays' working life.
展开▼
机译：在欧洲国家，劳动力的老龄化是一个主要问题，国家和组织政策都越来越重视该问题，以维持老年工人的就业能力并鼓励他们更长的工作寿命。特别是老年工人的就业能力可以被视为一个重要问题，因为这有可能激励他们的工作并改变他们的退休意向。基于寿命发展理论和Van der Heijden的“就业能力提高模型”，本文开发并测试了年龄适度的调解模型（指我们要在该模型中测试的过程），将年龄较大的工人（55岁）联系起来以及以上）对学习的工作支持感（与工作相关的因素）以及对生产力的负面年龄定型观念（组织因素）的看法，另一方面，他们通过参与提高就业能力来退休的意图活动，成为我们模型中的调解人。分析中共包括2,082名55岁及以上的工人。结果表明，预测因素与退休意向之间的两个拟议关系是通过参与就业能力增强活动而介导的，反映了工作情境通过两种机制影响退休意向（即“收益螺旋和损失螺旋”）。多组SEM分析对两个年龄组（55-60岁和61-65岁）进行了区分，揭示了两个杰出的老年工人组的不同路径。在两个年龄组中，可就业性都介导了对学习的工作支持观念与退休意愿之间的关系，而在55-60岁年龄组中，它仅介导了对负面年龄刻板印象的感知与退休意愿之间的关系。从我们的实证研究中，我们可以得出结论，鉴于老年人的退休意愿，就业能力是一个重要因素。为了激励这类工人参加提高就业能力的活动并延长工作时间，需要消除负面的年龄定型观念。此外，为终身学习创造就业支持也是当今工作生活中重要的人力资源实践。
展开▼
