The Age & Generations Study was conducted by the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College between November 2007 and September 2008 (Time 1: November 2007 to March 2008; Time 2: May 2008 to September 2008). The Center collaborated with nine U.S. workplaces (12 departments) on this study. Data was collected using surveys, most of which were completed online, though some employees used written questionnaires. Employees were asked a series of questions about the following topics: employees’ perceptions of their work, organization/department as a whole, work group, supervisor/team leader, work style, and outlook on life. In total, approximately 2,210 employees participated in Time 1 and 1,300 in Time 2.

context/need

At any point in time—but particularly during times of economic volatility—employers are interested in maximizing the efficiency, productivity, and creativity of their workforces. In order to do this, it is essential that employers understand the perceptions that today’s multi-generational workforce have about their employment experiences.

The aging of the workforce has caused employers to raise questions regarding whether differences in employees’ ages might affect their preferences for the types of employment they seek, their assessments of their employment experiences, and their decisions about remaining with their current employer. Employers who are striving to remain employers-of-choice can use their understanding about age differences to enhance the effectiveness of their talent management policies and practices.

At the same time, many employers are actively considering options for managing today’s multi-generational workforce. Although some new understanding about generational issues has started to emerge from research, a considerable amount of mis-information has also proliferated. W. Stanton Smith gets to the heart of the matter with the title of his 2008 book, Decoding Generational Differences: Fact, fiction … or should we just get back to work?

The Age & Generations Study conducted by the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College was designed and implemented to gather new, practical information about contemporary multi-generational work teams. Specifically, the study examined the extent to which diversity – with respect to age/generation, life-stage events, career-stage, and tenure – influences employees’ experiences at work.

background

For much of the 20th century, age was used as an indicator of the “seasons of our lives,” in part because it seemed that, for many of us, our lives unfolded in a way that (more or less) appeared to correspond with age. But, if you think for a minute about your own life and the lives of others you know, is chronological age alone a reliable indicator of your experiences? Doubtfully.

Several major changes have occurred that make chronological age an unreliable indicator of individual’s experiences with regard to work and life:

1. Life course events and transitions such as education completion, career entry and exit, marriage, family formation, divorce, and retirement are tied less and less to chronological age than they were in the past.
2. Such events/transitions are more continuous and multi-directional than they used to be.
3. Life trajectories with regard to these various events/transitions are interdependent upon each other and may develop simultaneously and reciprocally within and across individual lives¹.

Why then, when examining our workforce, would we compare groups of employees based on chronological age alone? We must examine employees’ perceptions of their employment experiences through multiple age-related lenses including, but not limited to:

1. Chronological Age/Generations:
   Chronological age is often used as proxy measure for age-related individual human development (physical, social, emotional, cognitive). The term generations (typically defined using chronological age cut-offs) refers to population groups of people who are approximately the same age. Key societal experiences (such as economic circumstances, historical events, and dominant cultural values) have the potential to affect enduring ways that a majority of the members of these groups view the world and make meaning out of their experiences.
   
2. Life Course:
   Life course refers to important transitional experiences that shape major life roles (often indicated by markers of life events and transitions, such as marriage or the birth of children, which connect us to our social world).
   
3. Career-Stage:
   The career-stage designation is a way of thinking about experiences that mark the accumulation of knowledge, competencies, skills and social capital related to a particular type of career or line of work. While career progression might seem more or less clear for some occupations and professions, it is not for others. Furthermore, if an employee has made a career change or has taken some time out from the workforce, they might feel that they are actually in an earlier career-stage than they had been in the past.
   
4. Tenure:
   Tenure refers the number of years that an employee has been with a particular employer (or, in some cases, the number of years the person has been in a particular job). Tenure is, of course, often related to career-stage and age. In contrast to the age-related factors discussed above (which are descriptors of the individual employee), tenure is a measure of the relationship between the individual and the organization.
   

key research questions

• Is it important for employers to consider age/generation, life course, career-stage, and tenure in understanding the employment experiences of their workers?
• Are there relationships between age-related factors and employees’ experiences as team members?
• If we use different age-related markers to examine employees’ reports of their work experiences, do we gain a deeper understanding about the quality of their employment?

selected findings

• The relationships among these four different ways to look at our lives (age/generation, life course, career-stage, and tenure) can vary considerably from individual to individual. For example, the span of ages within different career-stages is quite large. The ages of those who reported that they were in early-career ranged from age 17 to 61 years; mid-career, from 22 to 62 years; and late-career, from 28 to 81 years.
• Generation Y’ers/Millennials (those age 26 or under) experienced less work overload than employees in Generation X (ages 27-42) and the Baby Boomers (ages 43-61).
• Older Baby Boomers (age 53-61) were less likely to perceive their supervisors as supportive and effective than those in the Younger Generation X group (ages 27 to 35).
• Early-career employees experienced less work overload than mid- or late-career employees.
• Mid-career employees perceived greater access to flexible work options than did early- or late-career employees.
• Early-career employees were more likely to perceive their supervisors as supportive than mid- or late-career employees.
• Employees with eldercare responsibilities (but no children under the age of 18) felt less secure in their jobs than those with children under the age of 18 (but no eldercare responsibilities).
• Employees with eldercare responsibilities (but not children under the age of 18) felt that they had less access to flexibility then those with children under the age of 18 (but no eldercare) and those not providing any dependent care.
• Employees with no dependent care responsibilities were more satisfied with their benefits than those with children under the age of 18 (but no eldercare responsibilities).
• Those with 3.01-10 years of tenure felt less included in their team than those with 0-3 years or 10.01 or more years of tenure.
• Those 0-3 years of tenure felt more supported by their supervisor and felt that their supervisors were more effective than those with 3.01 or more years of tenure.
• Those with the least amount of tenure (0-3 years) perceived that they had greater access to learning and development opportunities than those with 3.01 or more years of tenure.

implications for employers

• Although most workplace-based resources – such as flexible work options – are available to all employees (regardless of age), employees of different ages might access or experience those resources in different ways. Therefore, employers might find it helpful to examine the extent to which their policies and programs are, in reality, age-neutral.
• It is important to keep in mind that employees of ALL ages might: be early-, mid-, or late-career workers; have tenure that ranges significantly; and may or may not have responsibilities for dependent care.
• Employees’ assessments of their employment experiences are different when you examine them through multiple age-related lenses. Therefore, employers will find it useful to consider age-related factors (such as career-stage, tenure, and life course experiences) as well as chronological age (or generations that mark age groups) when they gather information about their employees’ experiences at the workplace.

publications

• Age & Generations: Understanding Experiences at the Workplace (March 2009) by Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, Christina Matz-Costa, and Elyssa Besen
• Workplace Flexibility: Findings from the Age & Generations Study (January 2009) by Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, Christina Matz-Costa, and Elyssa Besen
• Engaging the 21st Century Multi-generational Workforce: Findings from the Age & Generations Study(March 2009) by Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, Christina Matz-Costa
• The Difference A Downturn Can Make: Assessing The Early Effects of the Economic Crisis on the Employment Experiences of Workers (June 2009)

contact

For questions and more information about the Age & Generations Study, contact:

Chad Minnich, Assistant Director, Marketing/Communications
minnicch@bc.edu   |   +1 . 617 . 552 . 3122

age & generations study team

To schedule a conversation with any of our staff, please contact Chad Minnich, Assistant Director, Marketing & Communications, at 617-552-3122, or minnicch@bc.edu.

primary investigators
Marcie Pitt-Catsoupes, PhD	Director Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston College Associate Professor Graduate School of Social Work & Caroll School of Management, Boston College Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes directs the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College. She is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Social Work, and has appointments at the Boston College Carroll School of Management and the Business School at Middlesex University in London. She was the Co-Principal Investigator for the 2006 National Study of Business Strategy and Workforce Development and the 2007-2008 Age & Generations Study. Her current work includes oversight of the 2009 Talent Management Study. She will be leading the 2010 Generations of Talent study with colleagues from around the world. She was invited to the 2005 White House Conference on Aging as an issue expert, and recently co-edited a special issue of Generations (2007) that focused on aging and work. Dr. Pitt-Catsouphes was a recipient of the 2007 Work-Life Legacy Award. She serves on several boards and advisory committees, including the National Advisory Committee for Workplace 2010 at Georgetown University, the Strategy Board for the Association of Work/Life Professionals at the World of Work, and the Purdue Center for Families. Dr. Pitt-Catsouphes’ articles have been published in a number of scholarly and practitioner journals. She was a founding co-editor for the international journal, Community, Work and Family. Her publications include The Work-Family Handbook: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives and Approaches to Research, published by Erlbaum Publishers (2006) which she edited with colleagues. She received her BA from Tufts University, MSP from Boston College, and PhD from Boston University.
Michael Smyer, PhD	Research Fellow Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston College Provost Bucknell University Michael Smyer is the provost and a professor of psychology at Bucknell University. Prior to joining Bucknell, Smyer was a professor of psychology and co-director of the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College. At the Center, he focused on developing evidence-based practices to enhance the individual and organizational effectiveness of 21st-century workplaces. Smyer's research and teaching focus on adult development and aging, with special attention to the impact of the contexts of aging. In addition, he has written extensively on aging and mental health, particularly the policy aspects of this area.
research team
Elyssa Besen	Research Assistant Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston College Doctoral Student Lynch School of Education, Boston College Elyssa Besen is a Research Assistant at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work and a doctoral student in the Applied Development Psychology Program in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. She earned her BA in Psychology from Brandeis University. She is interested in studying the impact of work on adult development.
Jacquelyn B. James, PhD	Co-Director of Research Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston College Research Professor Lynch School of Education, Boston College Jacquelyn B. James, a personality and developmental psychologist, is co-director of research at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work and a research professor at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College.  Her research has focused on the meaning and experience of work in women’s lives, gender roles, and adult development.  Her most recent publication, The Crown of Life: Dynamics of the Early Postretirement Period, details the opportunities and challenges inherent in the early retirement years for new retirees.  She is also co-principal investigator of the Workplace Culture and Flexible Work Arrangements study at the center.  Dr. James is past-president of the Society for the Study of Human Development and serves on the editorial board of the society’s flagship journal, Research in Human Development.
Kathy Lynch, MBA	Director of Employer Engagement Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston College Kathy is Director of Employer Engagement at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College. In her role, Kathy works in partnership with decision-makers at the workplace to ensure that their voice is evident throughout all phases of the Center's research. Kathy brings to her role over a decade of experience in Employer Partnerships and University based research and project management. Kathy's content expertise spans the work/life and diversity fields, and quality employment for the multigenerational workforce.
Christina Matz-Costa, MSW	Research Associate Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston College PhD Candidate Graduate School of Social Work, Boston College Christina Matz-Costa is a research associate at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College, where she is in charge of data management and analysis for the Age & Generations Study and the National Study of Business Strategy and Workforce Development. Christina is also a doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Social Work at Boston College. Her research interests include employee engagement, productive aging, work-family issues, employer response to the aging of the workforce, quantitative data analysis and multi-level modeling.
Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, PhD	Associate Professor of Management Department of Management and Strategy, Rouen Business School Ariane Ollier-Malaterre is an Associate Professor of Management at Rouen Business School. She has been a post-doctoral researcher with the Sloan Center on Aging and Work. Ariane has a 10-year professional experience and holds a PhD in Organizational Behavior from ESSEC Business School and CNAM University, Paris. She has compared Work-Life Balance organizational initiatives across France, the UK and the US. Her research interests include the Individual/Organization relationship, Work-Life and flexible working, Lifecycle and Aging, Protean Careers, and qualitative methodologies.
Jennifer Swanberg, PhD	Associate Professor of Social Work College of Social Work, Colleges of Medicine and Public Health, University of Kentucky Executive Director Institute for Workplace Innovation, University of Kentucky Jennifer E. Swanberg is executive director of the Institute for Workplace Innovation at the University of Kentucky, and associate professor in the UK College of Social Work with joint appointments in the Colleges of Medicine and Public Health. She is also a faculty affiliate with the UK Center on Poverty Research and the Center for the Advancement of Women’s Health, a research investigator at the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College and a Research Fellow of the Boston College Work & Family Roundtable. Her research focuses on quality workplaces as a business and work-life effectiveness strategy, access to workplace flexibility among under-represented populations, and the use of human capital and quality employment as a form of economic development. She is co-principal investigator of the Workplace Culture and Flexible Work Arrangements study funded by Sloan Center on Aging & Work.
Monique Valcour, PhD	Assistant Professor, Organizational Studies Boston College Professor Valcour’s research program focuses on career dynamics and on the integration of work and family roles. One current project examines the effects of career strategies and human resource practices on mobility, earnings, and subjective career success among call center employees. Other projects investigate work-family conflict, organizational career management, and the career experiences of dual-earner couples. Professor Valcour is a former fellow of the Cornell Careers Institute. Her research has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Program on Workplace, Workforce and Working Families and by the Russell Sage and Rockefeller Foundations’ Future of Work Program.
1 O’Rand, A.M. & Campbell, R.T. (1999). On reestablishing the phenomenon and specifying ignorance: Theory development and research design in aging. In V.L. Bengtson, & K.W. Schaie, Handbook of Theories of Aging (pp. 59-78). New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.