Age, ageing and work-related proactivity

My study challenges the negative age stereotype that older employees are less proactive. This study is important in the current society because we need to address the problem of being proactive in the context of ageing workforce. It is widely thought that older employees’ ideas begin to dry up, and that it is not worthwhile investing in training for older employees. Proactivity is a self-initiated, future-oriented and change-oriented work behaviour which has shown increasing value in current work settings. The study explores the relationships between work-related proactivity and three age-related concepts including chronological age, subjective age and awareness of age-related change. Using a mixed-methods approach, involving a questionnaire and interviews to collect data from Chinese teachers (421 for the questionnaire and 33 for the interviews), I show that the concept of awareness of age-related change is the best predictor of proactivity. Awareness of positive age-related change is positively associated with task, development and organisation proactivity, whereas negative age-related change is negatively related to them. Subjective age has negative relationships with task, development and organisation proactivity, while chronological age is positively associated with task and organisation proactivity in quantitative findings. No age-related construct is associated with I-deals proactivity. I offer a theory – based on socio-emotional selectivity theory and selection, optimisation and compensation theory – of the mechanisms underlying the awareness of age-related change’s effect on work-related proactivity. In the qualitative results, interview responses confirm quantitative findings in general. Those people in managerial roles also engage more in proactive behaviours, implying that opportunities for proactivity play a role.