Age differences in three components of employee well-being

There are conflicting opinions and findings about the relationship between employee age and occupational well-being. Viewing well-being in terms of three main components (overall job satisfaction, job stress, and job boredom), predictions are tested in a study of employees in nine different countries. It is found that a U-shaped pattern exists for job satisfaction and (inverted) for job stress; however, job boredom merely declines linearly with increasing age. Applying hierarchical multiple regression analyses in order to examine factors accounting for the three age patterns, the positive association between age and job satisfaction is shown to be fully explained by differences in job and personal factors, as is the curvilinear association between age and job stress. However, age differences in job boredom are not substantially affected by the 14 control variables examined here. In comparisons between the explanatory power of different variables for each component of well-being, patterns of associations are found to vary in a predicted manner. The need to take a differentiated view of occupational well-being is emphasised, for example in terms of the three components examined here.