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Bad Hiring Chances for Older Workers
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It is often claimed that work opportunities decline with age, that hiring chances of older persons are poor. We investigate this by collecting questionnaire responses of personnel managers of German manufacturing firms, eliciting a hypothetical hiring decision based on three fictitious candidates. We rely on an age-neutral job and a small age-gap of 14 years between the youngest and the oldest candidate. The quasi-experimental design of the questionnaire allows to control for possible productivity differences and other economic explanations for declining hiring chances. The data show a 60 percentage point difference in hiring probabilities between the youngest and oldest candidate.
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... Widespread agreement exists that discrimination is very common in labour market integration (Adams, 2004;Büsch, Dittrich and Koenigstein, 2009), undermining the chances for certain groups in society to gain employment. Often reduced to a mere interaction between jobseekers and employers, the fact that labour market integration does not consist of a single event, but of a sequence of interactions with various actors and transitions through several phases (e.g. ...
... Ageism, defined as discriminatory practices, attitudes and perceptions regarding older people (Butler, 1969), has gained immense interest in the wake of industrialised nations' efforts to delay retirement and prolong working lives. Similar to other grounds for discrimination, such as gender or race, ageism can lead to disadvantages in the labour market, not solely but particularly for older age cohorts (Adams, 2004;Büsch, Dittrich and Koenigstein, 2009;Frerichs et al., 2012). Whereas some forms of age discrimination might be rather obvious, ageism in the labour market can also be more subtle. ...
... Whether or not one decides to fill this gap with relevant or irrelevant experience, or with periods of non-employment, these differences can influence employers' call-back decisions, confounding the measurement of age discrimination itself. Survey research of personnel managers, however, has achieved similar results (Büsch, Dittrich and Koenigstein, 2009;Büsch, Dahl and Dittrich, 2009), though with the finding that successful intergenerational contact can mitigate age discrimination (Fasbender and Wang, 2017). ...
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discourse on labour market discrimination by introducing an analytical process model that offers a template for the systematic analysis of discrimination within the process of labour market integration. Its usage and contribution to the field is exemplified by applying the proposed model to the case of ageism in labour market integration.
Design/methodology/approach - Five phases and four actors are distinguished that, added together, compose the proposed analytical process model. In the following, the model is used as an analytical framework for a mapping review, aimed at identifying and critically evaluating the vast and extensive literature on ageism in the process of labour market integration.
Findings - The paper concludes that ageism occurs in all five phases of the integration process, pinpointing potential areas for policy interventions. Furthermore, the authors conclude that the existing literature on ageism in labour market integration is fragmented, with some elements and/or actors within the process so far having received little attention.
Originality/value - The analytical process model developed in this paper provides the scientific community with a tool to systematise the literature, detect underlying mechanisms and uncover existing research gaps, not only for the case of ageism presented here, but for a vast variety of other-isms. In addition, policy makers, trade unions and employers can use the model to better target and tailor anti-discrimination measures in labour market integration.
... In the Scandinavian country, age was shown to only have a minor role in the selection process, resulting in better hiring chances of older applicants than in Germany. In another study, Büsch, Dittrich and Königstein (2009) presented applicant profiles to German HR managers in manufacturing firms relating to an age-neutral position. ...
... Even with the most objective recruitment method in place, subjective assessments of candidates guided by prejudices and stereotypes might be in place at the time of hire, in particular with respect to disadvantaged groups (Phelps, 1972). Discrimination is therefore more likely in the first phase of the employment relationship than in later stages (Büsch et al., 2009, Richardson et al., 2013. ...
The thesis investigates age discrimination in personnel selection decisions across different industries and positions in Austria. A factorial sur-vey approach (FSA), also called vignette study, is applied. This semi-experimental research method combines the advantages of both survey re-search and classical experiments. A vignette is a short description of a social situation or a person that consists of several characteristics (factors and their levels) which can be simultaneously manipulated. The experimental design takes on all possible combinations of factor levels across all factors. Such de-sign allows studying the effect of each factor on the dependent variable, as well as the effects of interactions between factors on the response variable. The impact of each dimension on respondent’s judgment can be estimated accurately. To make it more specific, through a vignette design it is possible to investigate the solely effect of age on selection decisions, a factor that is usually confounded with other factors in reality. Respondents in this study are HR managers from different organizations in Austria. They are confront-ed with scenarios of hypothetical applicants and are then asked to state the hiring desirability for the respective job seeker. The paper elaborates on the research method and presents results of multilevel analysis.
Keywords: Age discrimination; personnel selection; Vignette approach
... Again, as a result of the AI algorithm, we found no interactions between the three factors; however, there was a statistically significant difference between ages as determined by one-way ANOVA (F(9,134) = 4.663, p <0.0001). This observation is substantiated by several other studies (e.g., Büsch, 2009;Köchling & Wehner, 2020;Raub, 2018). We observed that age bias became slightly more pronounced in the AI algorithm than in the human rater model (changes in all three factors were not statistically significant). ...
As populations age, an increasing number of workers beyond the traditional retirement age are opting to continue working. Nevertheless, discrimination against older job seekers seeking new employment opportunities remains widespread. To address this issue, we enlisted a pool of crowdworkers to assess the resumes of IT job candidates and guess each candidate's age, race, and gender. Using this crowdsourced data, we trained an AI model and applied bias correction techniques from IBM's AI 360 and Microsoft's Fairlearn toolkits to correct for biases based on race, gender, and age. We analyzed the effectiveness of these tools in mitigating different types of bias in job hiring algorithms, explored why age may be more challenging to eliminate than other forms of bias, and discussed additional approaches to enhance fairness. Our results indicate that implicit age bias, or ageism, is prevalent in hiring decisions and more pervasive than other well-documented forms of bias, such as race and gender biases.
... As shown through a vignette design, Dutch employers are reluctant to hireearlyretireesdespitetheirequalqualifications(Karpinska/Henkens/Schippers2011a).The few studies that exist for German-speaking countries produced similar results. Applying questionnaire studies, an age bias against older applicants was detected in the hiring stage(Büsch/ Dahl/Dittrich 2004;Büsch/Dittrich/Königstein 2008). While correspondence testing targets the pre-interview phase only, questionnaire studies on age discrimination entail the risk of socially desirable response behaviour.The vignette approach (also termed factorial survey approach) represents a research methodparticularlysuitedforthestudyofsocialnormsandsensitivetopics.Itaimstounderstandthe underlyingmechanismsofsocialjudgements(Rossi/Anderson1982)byincludingseveralfactors to reduce socially desirable responses. ...
In recent years, we have witnessed the creation and rapid expansion of a new set of digital or virtual currencies. These “cryptocurrencies” differ from traditional currencies in two ways: their method of creation, which is based in a computer process known as Blockchain, and their ability to operate without the control or oversight of a private entity or governmental organization.
The main objectives of this article are to explain the processes for the creation and operation of a cryptocurrency, processes quite different from those of tradi- tional currencies (FIATC), as well as analyzing the evolution of this new market, particularly in terms of its capitalization, transactional ability, and ability to create new currencies, with a special emphasis on those cryptocurrencies that are in the highest demand (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.). The article closes with our main reflections regarding the boom in demand for these types of currencies, and their implications for the “Internet of Things” (IoT).
In the area of age discrimination in simulated employment settings, the present study meta-analytically tested 4 primary hypotheses derived from the social psychological stereotyping literature, referred to as the in-group bias, job information, salience, and job stereotype hypotheses. In general, the results supported the in-group bias, job information, and salience hypotheses, in that younger raters tended to give less favorable ratings to older workers when they were not provided with job-relevant information about the workers and when they concurrently rated old and young workers. Future research, including the initiation of research on economic-based age stereotypes, as well as practice directions related to valuing age diversity in organizational stakeholder groups are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Have we conquered the problems of racial discrimination? Or have acts of discrimination become too subtle and covert for detection? This discussion serves to situate current debates about discrimination within the context of available measurement techniques. In this article, the author (1) considers the arguments from recent debates over the contemporary relevance of labor market discrimination; (2) provides a detailed introduction to experimental field methods for studying discrimination (also called audit studies), including an overview of the findings of recent audit studies of employment; (3) addresses the primary critiques of the audit methodology and the potential threats to the validity of studies of this kind; and (4) considers how we might reconcile evidence from field experiments with those from analyses of large-scale survey data, each of which points to markedly different conclusions. Only by gathering rigorous empirical evidence can we begin to understand the nature of race and racial discrimination in labor markets today.
People today are living longer than ever before, while birth rates are dropping in the majority of OECD countries. Such demographics raise the question: are current public social expenditures adequate and sustainable? Older workers play a crucial role in the labour market. Now that legal retirement ages are rising, fewer older workers are retiring early, but at the same time those older workers who have lost their job after the age of 50 have tended to remain in long term unemployment. What can countries do to help? How can they give older people better work incentives and opportunities? These reports offer analysis and assessment on what the best policies are for fostering employability, job mobility and labour demand at an older age.
Investigates whether the recent emphasis on persuading employers to abandon ageist attitudes and appoint or promote on merit, irrespective of the applicant’s age, has been justified by comparing the results of the 1992 Institute of Personnel Management survey with those from 221 post-experience management students from a survey carried out in 1995. In this preliminary analysis of the data, major points of similarity and divergence are examined to see if a “new generation” of managers are thinking in substantially different ways on this long-standing labour market issue.
The decision to remain in the workforce or fully retire is typically made between the ages of 55 and 64 and is predicated on many factors, including the availability of suitable jobs. The authors explored the extent to which members of this age group are being hired by different industries and developed a model isolating what types of factors best determine relative hiring rates: those specific to an industry, a labor market, the older worker age group, or some combination thereof. The authors estimate a low rate of new hiring for older workers aged 55 to 64 years, with low turnover and net outflows but substantial variability among industries. The findings additionally suggest that current national industry job growth and pay differentials among older new hires, existing older workers, and other new hires have the greatest bearing on how much these net flows vary by industry within states. Implications for older workers, their prospective employers, and policy makers are discussed.
Three hundred employers in a suburban area of the Pacific Northwest were surveyed by mall. Ninety-eight (i.e., 33%) responded with their perceptions of older (ages 50 and over) and younger (aged 49 and under) workers on 12 attributes. In contrast to previous research, this study found more favorable ratings for older workers overall. Including such categories as attendance and salary expectations. Younger workers were rated more favorably on the attributes computer skills, energy levels, flexibility, and learning ability. An ingroup bias was found for ratings of older workers by older employers.