Withdrawing from job search: The effect of age discrimination on occupational future time perspective, career exploration, and retirement intentions

Abstract

Older job seekers dropping out of the active workforce is a major challenge for individuals, organizations, and society, resulting in the need to protect and extend their working lives. Based on the discouraged workers approach, this study used career construction theory to study how past experiences can discourage older job seekers and make them withdraw from the job search. Specifically, we explored how age discrimination is connected to lower levels of older job seekers' occupational future time perspective (i.e., remaining time and future opportunities) and how it results in less career exploration and higher retirement intentions. Using a three-wave design, we followed 483 older job seekers in two countries (the United Kingdom and the United States) over a total period of two months. Results of structural equation modeling showed that perceived age discrimination decreased older job seekers' remaining time and future opportunities. Further, remaining time was negatively linked to retirement intentions, whereas future opportunities were positively linked to career exploration. Furthermore, results revealed two indirect effects of age discrimination on (1) retirement intentions via remaining time and (2) career exploration via future opportunities. These results show how damaging age discrimination can be in the job search context and we call for the search of potential moderators that can buffer the negative impact of age discrimination. Practitioners should work on protecting older job seekers' occupational future time perspective to keep them active instead of losing them to early retirement.