Bowen, C.E., & Skirbekk, V. (2013). National stereotypes of older people’s competence are related to older adults’ participation in paid and volunteer work. Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 68(6), 974–983, doi:10.1093/geronb/gbt101. 974983
National Stereotypes of Older People’s Competence Are Related to Older Adults’ Participation in Paid and Volunteer Work Catherine E. Bowen1 and Vegard Skirbekk2 1
Jacobs Center on Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development, Jacobs University Bremen, Germany. 2 World Population, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria.
Method. We used multilevel regression to analyze data from the European Social Survey and test the relationship between perceptions of older people’s competence and older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work across 28 countries. We controlled for a number of potentially confounding variables, including life expectancy as well as the gender ratio and average education of the older population in each country. We controlled for the average objective cognitive abilities of the older population in a subsample of 11 countries. Results. Older people were perceived as more competent in countries in which more older people participated in paid or volunteer work, independent of life expectancy and the average education, gender makeup, and average cognitive abilities of the older population. Discussion. The results suggest that older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work is related to perceptions of older people’s competence independent of older people’s actual competence. Key Words: Images of aging—Old age stereotypes—Older people’s social participation—Social role theory.
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lder people tend to be viewed or stereotyped as less competent than younger people (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002; Kite, Stockdale, Whitley, & Johnson, 2005; Löckenhoff et al., 2009). At the same time that negative stereotypes regarding older people’s competence have been observed in multiple countries, there are also important cultural/country differences in the extent to which older people are perceived as (in)competent (Löckenhoff et al., 2009). Societal stereotypes about older people’s competence are important because people tend to internalize societal stereotypes, which can in turn lead to “self-fulfilling prophecies.” For instance, people who endorse more negative age stereotypes at earlier ages tend to experience more negative changes in health and even earlier death relative to people who endorse a more positive age stereotype (Levy, 2009). Negative societal stereotypes regarding older people’s competence are also thought to result in acts of age discrimination and difficulties in finding employment among older adults (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2006). Given the pervasive consequences of negative societal stereotypes regarding older people’s competence, it seems critical to identify factors that explain between-country variation in perceptions of older people’s competence, or in other words, why older 974
people in one country are seen as more competent than older people in another country. In the current study, we investigate the extent to which variation in perceptions of older people’s competence across countries is systematically related to variation in the participation of older adults in paid and volunteer work. Our investigation is based on social role theory (Eagly, 1987; Wood & Eagly, 2000, 2002), which points to the social roles of older and younger people as one potential source of old age stereotypes. We focus on the participation of the older population in paid and volunteer work as an independent variable because of (a) the empirically demonstrated association between perceptions of a person’s competence and his or her employment status (see later) and (b) the relevance of paid and volunteer work as outlets of older adults’ productivity across much of the Western world, as evidenced by various recommendations and initiatives to increase older adults’ participation in paid and volunteer work (e.g., the promotion of “active aging” by the World Health Organization, 2002; policy recommendations of the OECD, 2006). We focus on perceptions of older peoples’ competence as a dependent variable because we were particularly interested in examining how features of societies shape people’s subjective realities, though we emphatically acknowledge that the relationship between
© The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]. Received July 27, 2012; Accepted August 21, 2013 Decision Editor: Merril Silverstein, PhD
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Objectives. Why are older people perceived as more competent in some countries relative to others? In the current study, we investigate the extent to which national variation in perceptions of older people’s competence is systematically related to national variation in the extent to which older people participate in paid and volunteer work.
Older People Perceived Competence/Roles
both volunteering and paid work are associated with productive engagement in an organization. To our knowledge, no previous research has tested the association between the volunteer role and competence perceptions. We therefore tested in an exploratory fashion whether perceptions of older people’s competence would be differentially related to older people’s participation in paid versus volunteer work. Besides correspondence bias based on the social roles older people fulfill in different countries, differences in perceptions of older people’s competence across countries might also be due to accurate perceptions of older adults’ competencies in that particular country. Older people in some countries are likely to have better skills (i.e., be more competent) than older people in other countries (see Skirbekk, Loichinger, & Weber, 2012). For instance, based on a representative sample of the majority of those aged 50 years and older in the world, Skirbekk and colleagues (2012) found that the age at which average performance on a harmonized measure of immediate recall dropped below a given threshold (i.e., fewer than half of the words correctly recalled within 1 min) varies considerably across nations. Country differences in factors such as nutrition, living and working conditions, and early life experiences likely contribute to country differences in the cognitive performance of older populations. In particular, countries with higher average educational levels tend to have better performing older populations (Skirbekk et al., 2012). Thus, variation in national stereotypes of older people’s competence could reflect a “kernel of truth” (Prothro & Melikian, 1955). In the current study, we statistically controlled for a number of potential confounders that might otherwise explain a relationship between older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work and perceptions of older people’s competence in a given country. First, we controlled for the gender ratio (i.e., the proportion of men to women) of the population 65+ in each country. Because women tend to live longer than men, older populations tend to be disproportionately female. However, the extent to which older women outnumber older men varies considerably across countries. We controlled for the gender ratio 65+ as a potential confounder because (a) participation in paid work is associated with gender (with more men in paid employment than women; OECD, 2009, p. 73) and (b) perceptions of competence are likewise related to gender (Bosak et al., 2008, 2012; Eagly, 1987; Fiske et al., 2002, 2007). In order to specifically test that perceptions of older adults’ competence are systematically related to older adults’ participation in certain social roles, over and above their actual competence, we statistically controlled for a number of indicators of the objective competence of the older population in each country. Because working and volunteering older adults tend to be better educated, healthier, and perform better on measures of cognition as compared with nonworking or volunteering older adults (Blöndahl & Scarpetta, 1998; Bonsang, Adam, & Perelman, 2012; Engelhardt, Buber,
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stereotypes about older people and the social roles of older people is likely reciprocal (cf. Eagly, 1987; Wood & Eagly, 2000, 2002). Social role theory posits that when members of a particular social group disproportionately fulfill certain social roles (e.g., men fulfill more leadership positions than women), people tend to associate certain characteristics with the persons—and hence, the groups—fulfilling the role (e.g., men have more leadership qualities than women). Previous survey and experimental research have demonstrated that people across countries tend to associate competence-related traits with the employee role (Cuddy et al., 2009; Eagly & Steffen, 1984; Fiske et al., 2002, 2007; Kite, 1996). For instance, laboratory studies have indicated that people have a decreased tendency to negatively stereotype female targets as less competent relative to men when both men and women are described as being employees (Bosak, Sczesny, & Eagly, 2008, 2012; Eagly & Steffen, 1984). To our knowledge, only one study has investigated the relationship between individuals’ age stereotypes on the one hand and information about the social role of the older person on the other hand. In this study, knowing that the older person was employed attenuated the extent to which older people were rated as less competent than younger people (Kite, 1996). It is unknown, however, whether the positive relationship between the perceived competence of a single older person and his or her employment status on the individual level can be extrapolated to explain phenomena on the group level, i.e., whether older people are perceived as more competent in social contexts (e.g., countries) in which more older people are working. Currently, older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work varies widely across countries. For instance, average effective retirement ages differ by up to 15 years within the OECD (2011). Based on social role theory and in line with previous studies on the association between employment status and stereotypical perceptions of competence, we hypothesized that older adults would be perceived as more competent in countries in which more older adults participate in paid and/or volunteer work. To test this hypothesis, we used data from the fourth wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) 2008/2009 (http://www. europeansocialsurvey.org/). The ESS is a representative survey of more than 50,000 participants in 28 countries, across Europe and in Israel and Turkey, which includes information on both perceptions of different age groups and participation in paid and volunteer work roles. The ESS sample of European countries is well suited for studying the relationship between perceptions of older people’s competence and older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work because there is substantial cross-national variation in older people’s participation in paid work (OECD, 2011) and volunteering (Erlinghagen & Hank, 2006) across the European countries. Like paid work, we assume that volunteer work likewise acts as a signal of competence because
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Method Sample The data were collected in 2008 from 54,988 participants aged 12–101 years. The surveys were designed to give nationally representative samples of the population aged 15 years and older in each country and consisted of at least 1,500 participants for each of the 28 countries. In this study, we were interested in stereotypes of older people, from the perspective of younger people (i.e., other- as opposed to self-stereotypes). Thus, we examined the perceptions of older people’s competence of the 43,376 participants aged below 65 years as our dependent variable. Respondents were on average 40.53 years old (standard deviation [SD] = 13.81) and had an average of 12.47 years of formal education (SD = 3.83). The respondent sample was more or less equally split between women (53.5%) and men (46.5%). Data from the 11,613 ESS participants aged 65 and older were used to calculate participation rates of the older population in paid and volunteer work and average years of education of the older population in each country (see later). The cognition subsample was composed of participants from the 11 countries (Belgium, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, Greece, Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden) for which cognition data were available (n = 17,442). Missing data on all variables on the individual level were imputed using the expectation maximization algorithm in SPSS 20 prior to analyses. Measures Perception of older people’s competence.—Perceptions of older people’s competence were measured with a single item, “Most people in [country] view those over 70 as
competent.” Participants answered the item using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 0 (not at all likely to be viewed that way) to 4 (very likely to be viewed that way). Older people’s participation in paid and/or volunteer work roles.—Older participants (65+) of the ESS indicated their participation in a volunteer role and/or paid work role by answering the item, “In the last month have you done any paid or voluntary work?” Participants could respond, 1 = “yes, paid work only”; 2 = “yes, volunteer work only”; 3 = “yes, both volunteer and paid work”; or 4 = “neither.” We used responses to this item to create three separate variables, one concerning participation in either paid or volunteer work consisting of people who answered 1, 2, or 3; one concerning participation in volunteer work consisting of people who answered 2 or 3; and one concerning participation in paid work consisting of people who answered 1 or 3 to this item. We used this information to calculate the proportion of the population 65+ participating in paid and/ or volunteer work roles for each country (aggregated using design weights from the ESS). Control Variables Respondent-level control variables.—We controlled for respondent demographics as well as respondents’ perceptions of younger people’s competence to control for answer tendencies. Respondents indicated their year of birth, years of education (rounded to the nearest whole year), and their gender. Perceptions of younger people’s competence were measured with a single item, “Most people in [country] view those in their 20s as competent.” Participants answered the item using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 0 (not at all likely to be viewed that way) to 4 (very likely to be viewed that way) (M = 2.42, SD = 1.01). Average education, population 65+.—Older participants (65+) of the ESS reported the number of years of education they had completed (rounded to the nearest whole year). We used this information to calculate the average years of education for the population 65+ for each country (aggregated using the design weights supplied by the ESS). Average life expectancy.—Statistics for the average life expectancy for 2008 were obtained from the online archives of the World Health Organization (2010; http://www.who. int/research/en/). Gender ratio, population 65+.—Statistics for the gender ratio (men:women; higher values indicate more men) for the population 65+ in 2008 for each country were obtained from the CIA World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency, 2009; https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/ the-world-factbook/).
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Skirbekk, & Prskawetz, 2010; Erlinghagen & Hank, 2006; Jung, Gruenewald, Seeman, & Sarkisian, 2010; MorrowHowell, 2010; Shmotkin, Blumstein, & Modan, 2003; Wang & Shultz, 2010), we controlled for the average years of education of the population 65+ as well as average life expectancy (as an indicator of health of the older population) as potential confounders. Finally, in a subsample of the countries, we were able to control for variation in the average objective cognitive abilities of the older populations in the sample by using scores from standardized cognitive measures available from nationally representative surveys as an objective indicator of the average (cognitive) competence of each country’s older population. Cognitive ability measures have been found to predict work performance better than other individual characteristics that could be observed before the individual is employed (Schmidt & Hunter 2004). Thus, objective cognitive ability provides a reasonable control for the selectivity of older adults in the work and volunteer force.
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separate variables in the model instead of the single participation in paid or volunteer work variable. We also compared the 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the estimates of the coefficients for older people’s participation in volunteering versus older people’s participation in paid work. In the analyses of the cognition subsample, we once again controlled for respondent controls (respondent age, gender, and education; perceived competence of younger people) on the respondent level. Due to the limited degrees of freedom on the country level in the cognition subsample (k = 11), we entered only the older people’s participation in either paid or volunteer work variable and one of the cognition variables at the country level in a single model (i.e., three different models were tested; Model 1: with average immediate recall 65+, Model 2: with average delayed recall 65+, Model 3: with average verbal fluency 65+). In a follow-up analysis, we also checked whether the results would hold when using a single index of “average cognitive abilities 65+” based on an average of the z-scores of each of the three cognition measures (immediate recall, delayed recall, verbal fluency). In light of the results from the analysis of the full sample and the reduced number of countries in the cognitive subsample, we specifically tested the one-sided hypothesis that older people’s participation in paid or volunteer work would be positively associated with perceptions of older people’s competence. Hence, we used the results of less conservative one-sided t tests to interpret the statistical significance of older people’s participation in paid or volunteer work in the analysis of the cognitive subsample.
Data Analysis Strategy We used a two-level multilevel regression approach. This method allows us to control for the dependency of individuals nested within countries. The software HLM 6.06 was used for all analyses (Raudenbush, Bryk, & Congdon, 2004). We compared the unweighted as well as two alternative scaled design weights models (Carle, 2009). All variables were grand mean centered. We first corrected for differences between the survey samples in the different countries by controlling for respondent age, gender, and education as well as ratings of the competence of people in their 20s at the respondent level. We then entered the paid and volunteer work participation rates of the population 65+ and the control variables (gender ratio 65+, average education 65+, average life expectancy) on the country level. Next, we explored whether participation of the population 65+ in volunteering had a different relationship with perceptions of older people’s competence than participation of the population 65+ in paid work by testing whether model fit was improved (based on the change in model deviance under full maximum likelihood estimation; Raudenbush et al., 2004) when the volunteering participation rates 65+ and paid work participation rates 65+ were entered as two
Results Across all countries, respondents indicated that older people were slightly more likely than not to be viewed as competent (M = 2.40, SD = 0.29). Figure 1 displays the overall distribution of the perceived competence variable. There were significant differences between countries with regard to the extent to which older people were perceived as competent. Overall, 7% of the overall variance in perceptions of older people’s competence was explained by between-country differences (calculated as country-level variance relative to overall variance). The country-average perceptions of older people’s competence ranged from 1.86 (Poland) to 3.03 (Hungary). Descriptive statistics regarding country-average perceptions of older people’s competence, older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work, gender ratio 65+, average education 65+, average life expectancy, and average cognitive abilities 65+ in each of the countries in the current sample are displayed in Table 1. Table 2 displays the means, SDs, and intervariable correlations among the country-level variables in the full sample (panel a) and the cognition subsample (panel b). Table 3 displays the results of the multilevel regression analyses. Because results between the unweighted models
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Average cognitive ability, population 65+.—Cognitive data from the The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) (Börsch-Supan & Jürges, 2005) were available for a subsample (k = 11) of the countries in the current analysis. SHARE included three measures of cognition: immediate recall, delayed recall, and verbal fluency. All three cognition measures were conducted via telephone interview. We used the SHARE scores for the participants aged 65 and older and the population estimates from the United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2011) to calculate the average cognitive abilities of the population 65+ in each country. Average immediate recall (65+) was based on the average proportion of words from a list of 10 that older participants in a given country could correctly recall within 1 min. Average delayed recall (65+) was based on the average proportion of words from the same initial list that older participants in a given country correctly recalled approximately 5 min later. Average verbal fluency (65+) was based on the average number of animals that older participants in a given country named within 1 min. Although cognition data were also available for Russia, we excluded Russia from the cognition subsample because Russia was an outlier (z > 2.5) with regard to both life expectancy and the gender ratio of the population 65+ and because previous research has demonstrated that the Russian older population differs markedly from the older populations of the other countries in the cognition subsample (e.g., due to high working age mortality as well as historical and economic circumstances; see Gavrilova & Gavrilov, 2009).
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and the two models with scaled design weights did not differ, we display only the unweighted results. In line with our hypothesis, older people were perceived as more competent in countries in which a greater proportion of older people participated in paid or volunteer work. The proportion of older people participating in paid or volunteer work accounted for 27.49% of the variance between countries. Model fit was not improved by separately entering older people’s participation in volunteering and older people’s participation in paid work into the model, χ2(1) = 0.4, p = .52. Based on the 95% CI estimates of the coefficients, there was no indication that the strength of the relationship between perceptions of older people’s competence and older people’s participation in volunteering (B = 1.77, SE = 0.69, t(22) = 2.57, p = .02, 95% CI [0.34–3.20]) differed in either direction or strength from the relationship between perceptions of older people’s competence and older people’s participation in paid work (B = 2.69, SE = 1.29, t(22) = 2.08, p = .05, 95% CI [0.01–5.36]). As shown in Table 2 (panel b), average cognition scores of the population 65+ were positively correlated with participation in paid or volunteer work of the population 65+ in the cognition subsample. However, as displayed in Table 3, none of the cognition measures were significantly related to perceptions of older people’s competence once older people’s participation in either paid or volunteer work was entered into the model (all ps ≥ .32). In contrast, participation in either volunteering or paid work remained significantly related to competence perceptions after controlling
for immediate recall and delayed recall, one-sided p = .02 and p = .04, respectively. Likewise, there was a trend that participation in either paid or volunteer work was related to competence perceptions after controlling for verbal fluency, one-sided p = .106. Using a single index of “average cognitive abilities 65+” based on an average of the z-scores of each of the three cognition measures (immediate recall, delayed recall, verbal fluency) yielded results consistent with the results obtained when using each of the cognitive indicators separately. Namely, the relationship between older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work and perceptions of older people’s competence was significant after controlling for the average cognitive abilities of the population 65+, B = 1.89 (1.00), t(8) = 1.89, one-sided p = .05. In contrast, there was no relationship between average cognitive abilities of the population 65+ and perceptions of older people’s competence once older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work was entered into the model, B = 0.06 (0.12), t(8) = 0.52, one-sided p = .31. Discussion Overall, younger people across Europe report that older people are somewhat more likely than not to be perceived as competent in their country. In line with social role theory (Eagly, 1987; Wood & Eagly, 2000, 2002), our results indicate that older people are perceived as more competent in countries in which a higher proportion of older adults
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Figure 1. Distribution of perceptions of older people’s competence.
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Table 1. Country Characteristics Across Study Variables
Country
Proportion of 65+ paid/ volunteer work
Gender ratio, 65+
Life expectancy (years)
Years education, 65+
Imm. recall, 65+
Del. recall, 65+
Verbal fluency, 65+
2.46 2.59 1.91 2.26 2.10 2.47 2.78 2.65 2.37 2.22 2.04 3.03 2.15 2.74 2.49 2.65 1.86 2.56 2.46 2.70 2.10 1.98 2.63 2.48 2.41 2.20 2.30 2.54
.23 .08 .03 .08 .14 .35 .19 .20 .23 .20 .07 .07 .25 .11 .42 .36 .08 .07 .10 .09 .09 .11 .07 .27 .25 .02 .23 .11
.70 .70 .63 .77 .64 .76 .50 .67 .71 .71 .78 .57 .75 .49 .74 .74 .62 .70 .70 .46 .60 .63 .72 .78 .70 .84 .75 .51
80 73 76 80 77 79 74 80 81 80 80 74 81 71 80 81 76 79 73 68 75 79 81 81 82 74 80 68
11.13 9.60 8.58 7.67 11.86 10.43 10.53 9.33 10.41 12.12 7.61 10.36 12.10 10.48 11.24 11.15 8.97 4.25 8.52 10.04 12.35 9.87 6.28 10.54 10.55 3.03 11.98 10.21
.30
.46
18.94
.29 .39
.46 .52
17.80 19.88
.26 .33 .28
.39 .49 .42
17.46 19.00 13.23
.34
.49
17.70
.21
.35
13.38
.20 .36 .33
.31 .49 .48
13.18 21.29 18.86
Notes. UK = United Kingdom. Gender ratio 65+: the proportion of men to women within the population 65 years and older. Imm. recall = immediate recall; average proportion of words from a list of 10 that older participants in a given country could correctly recall within 1 min. Del. recall = delayed recall; average proportion of words from the same initial list that older participants in a given country correctly recalled approximately 5 min later. Verbal fluency: average number of animals that older participants in a given country named within 1 min. The data in column 3 (gender ratio 65+, 2008) are from the CIA World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency, 2009). The data in column 4 (average life expectancy) are from the online archives of the World Health Organization (2010).
Table 2. Means, SDs, Ranges, and Intervariable Correlations of Country-Level Variables
(a) Full sample (N = 43,376, k = 28) 1. Paid/volunteer work 65+ 2. Education 65+ (years) 3. Life expectancy (years) 4. Gender ratio 65+ 5. Older people’s competence (b) Cognition subsample (n = 17,442, k = 11) 1. Paid/volunteer work 65+ 2. Immediate recall 65+ 3. Delayed recall 65+ 4. Fluency 65+ 5. Older people’s competence
M (SD)
Range
1
2
0.16 (0.11) 9.69 (2.26) 77.25 (4.04) 0.67 (0.10) 2.40 (0.29)
0.02–0.42 3.03–12.35 68–82 0.46–0.84 1.86– 3.03
.57** .51** .29 .19
.07 .28 .03
0.21 (0.11) 0.44 (0.06) 0.30 (0.06) 17.34 (2.83) 2.32 (0.23)
0.07– 0.42 0.31–0.52 0.20–0.39 13.18–21.29 1.86–2.63
.75** .79** .74** .54
.97** .84*** .44
3
4
−.72*** −.26
−.32
.85*** .32
.19
Notes. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.
participate in paid and volunteer work. Variation in the participation of older people in volunteering and paid working roles across countries was related to variation in perceptions of older people’s competence over and above average life expectancy, and the average education and gender ratio of each country’s older population, as well as the older population’s average objective cognitive abilities. Please
note that using average self-reported health of the population 65+ as an alternative indicator of the health of each country’s older population in place of average life expectancy did not change the results. With regard to perceptions of older people’s competence, there was no indication that it matters whether older adults participate in paid or volunteer work; both participation in volunteering and paid work
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Belgium Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Israel Latvia Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russian Federation Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey UK Ukraine
Perceived competence older people
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Table 3. Results of the Multilevel Regression Analyses for Variables Predicting Perceptions of Older People’s Competence Full samplea (N = 43,376; k = 28)
Cognition subsampleb (n = 17,442; k = 11) Model 1
Model 3
t
B (SE)
t
B (SE)
t
B (SE)
t
2.40 (0.05) 0.17 (0.00) 0.01 (0.00) −0.03 (0.01) −0.02 (0.00)
47.18*** 35.41*** 15.40*** −2.71** −11.87***
2.32 (0.06) 0.16 (0.01) 0.01 (0.00) −0.05 (0.01) −0.02 (0.00)
36.31*** 19.71*** 12.88*** −3.82*** −9.31***
2.32 (0.07) 0.16 (0.01) 0.01 (0.00) −0.05 (0.01) −0.02 (0.00)
34.78*** 19.71*** 12.88*** −3.82*** −9.31***
2.32 (0.07) 0.16 (0.01) 0.01 (0.00) −0.05 (0.01) −0.02 (0.02)
34.24*** 19.71*** 12.88*** −3.82*** −9.31***
2.37 (0.75) −1.50 (0.91) −0.06 (0.03) −0.03 (0.02)
3.17** −1.65 −1.64 −1.28
2.18 (0.88)
2.47*c
1.95 (0.99)
1.97*c
1.25 (0.92)
1.36†c
0.01 (0.04)
0.33
−1.64 (1.56)
−1.06 −1.12 (1.86)
−0.60
Notes. aStatistics refer to t tests with 43,367 and 23 degrees of freedom for the respondent level and the country level including the intercept, respectively. b Statistics refer to t tests with 17,435 and 8 degrees of freedom for the respondent level and the country level including the intercept, respectively. c Statistical significance based on one-sided t tests. † p ≤ .11. *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.
were related positively to perceptions of older adults’ competence, and model fit did not change when the predictors were entered separately into the model. The positive bivariate correlation on the country level between average cognition and participation in paid or volunteer work of the population 65+ in the cognition subsample (see Table 2, panel b) is consistent with findings that working and volunteering older adults are more cognitively fit than their nonworking and nonvolunteering age peers (Blöndahl & Scarpetta, 1998; Bonsang et al., 2012; Engelhardt et al., 2010; Erlinghagen & Hank, 2006; Jung et al., 2010; Morrow-Howell, 2010; Shmotkin et al., 2003; Wang & Shultz, 2010). However, none of the average objective cognition indicators (average immediate recall, average delayed recall, and average verbal fluency of the population 65+) were significantly related to ratings of older people’s competence after controlling for older people’s participation in work and volunteering roles. Hence, as far as the cognitive measures capture international variation in the objective competence of the older population in each country, our results suggest that older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work is positively related to perceptions of older people’s competence independent of older people’s actual competence. Still, we caution that the low sample size for the subset of countries with cognition information (k = 11) restricts the statistical power to make inferences. Older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work accounted for about a third of the variance in perceptions of older people’s competence between countries. Our results imply that social policies and structural factors at the country level that create opportunities for older adults to participate in work and volunteer roles may contribute to more positive perceptions of older adults’ competence. Similarly,
based on the wide variation in the proportion of older adults aging “successfully” (free of disease, socially engaged, and with maintained cognitive performance) across the countries participating in the SHARE survey, Hank (2011) concluded that structural factors at the societal level are closely related to successful aging opportunities over and above individuallevel factors. In addition to older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work, traditional mythology and cultural beliefs (Sokolovsky, 1993), social and economic policies (e.g., provisions for older people; Westerhof, Barrett, & Steverink, 2003), as well as between-country variation in the political participation and power of older adults (Goerres, 2009) might also explain variation in perceptions of older people’s competence across countries. The relationship between older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work and perceptions of older people’s competence seems to be stronger in some countries than in others. In particular, Hungary stands out as one country with a particularly positive stereotype of older people’s competence despite low participation of older adults in paid and volunteer work, although we do not have any explanation for this. Notably, in the current study, respondents reported that the perceived competence of people aged 70 and older was more or less equivalent to the perceived competence of people in their 20s (as seen from comparing the overall means). This particular finding is somewhat at odds with previous research that older people tend to be viewed or stereotyped as less competent than younger people (Fiske et al. 2002, 2007; Kite et al., 2005; Löckenhoff et al., 2009). The difference in findings may be due to differences in measurement (e.g., in the definition of younger and older people) and/or differences in the respondent samples (e.g., student samples vs the wide age range in the current sample) across studies.
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Respondent level Intercept Younger people’s competence Age Female (dummy) Education Country level Paid/volunteer work 65+ Gender ratio 65+ Education 65+ Life expectancy Immediate recall 65+ Delayed recall 65+ Fluency 65+
Model 2
B (SE)
Older People Perceived Competence/Roles
of freedom on the country level, especially in the cognition subsample, though we were above the minimum “five cases per independent variable” rule of thumb for regression (Tabachnick & Fidell, 1989). Another important limitation is that perceptions of older people’s competence were measured with a single self-report item. Such a cursory assessment does not allow us to estimate the validity of the item nor does a single item fully capture the complexity of cultural differences in perceptions of older people’s competence: Perceptions of competence may be multidimensional (e.g., competence with regard to performing basic everyday tasks, knowledge- and skill-based competence, social competence) and different dimensions of competence may be more or less sensitive to country differences. In addition, the item formulation does not allow us to disentangle the extent to which perceptions of older people’s competence reflect younger people’s perceptions of the aging process from younger people’s perceptions of a different generation (cf. Slotterback, 1996). Furthermore, it should be noted that respondents were asked what “most people” think, as opposed to what they personally believe. Thus, to be precise, our dependent variable represents individuals’ meta-perceptions (how they think other people think) of older people’s competence, as opposed to their own beliefs. Because research suggests that people generally tend to assume that other people hold more negative stereotypes than they do to themselves (Judd, Park, Yzerbyt, Gordijn, & Muller, 2005), it can be expected that the dependent measure used in the current study elicits more negative responses as opposed to a measures of an individual’s own perceptions of older people’s competence (e.g., “I view people over 70 as competent”). Therefore, the current results may underestimate the extent to which older people are perceived as competent. Due to the negative bias associated with people’s perceptions of other people’s stereotypes, the use of respondents’ perceptions of younger people’s competence as a statistical control, and the fact that our independent variables (e.g., older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work) and our dependent variable (perceptions of older people’s competence) stemmed from two distinct sources, our results cannot be explained by either single-source bias nor the use of a positively biased attitudinal measure. Finally, the current sample is restricted to a relatively small sample of European countries. The relationship between perceptions of older people’s competence and older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work may be fundamentally different in other cultural contexts. For instance, older people’s participation in work and volunteer roles may be less closely tied to perceptions of older people’s competence in countries in which participation in civic society (vs the family) is less highly valued and in countries in which employment and volunteering are less associated with competence relative to the European countries in our sample. Notably, empirical research has demonstrated that employment status is associated with competence stereotypes across both Western and Eastern Asian contexts (Cuddy et al., 2009). Thus, there is at least some reason to believe
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Alternatively, there may be some national contexts in which younger people are seen as less competent than older people. Future research with regard to the relationship between younger people’s social roles and perceptions of younger people’s competence would be fruitful for further supporting the general tenets of social role theory. For instance, following from the argumentation in the current article, differing rates of youth unemployment (e.g., 51.1% of the total youth labor force aged 15–24 is unemployed in Spain; OECD, 2012) may be systematically related to national stereotypes of younger people’s competence. In the current study, we were interested in explaining variance between countries as opposed to explaining variance between individuals. Importantly, between-country differences only accounted for a small proportion of the overall variance in individuals’ perceptions of older people’s competence. This result is in line with the results of a study of students’ stereotypes of older people across 26 countries (Löckenhoff et al., 2009). Although factors related to interindividual differences with regard to perceptions of older people’s competence were not the focus of the current study, it is worth noting that higher respondent age was associated with more positive perceptions of older people’s competence (see Table 3). The association between higher age and more positive perceptions of older people’s competence is consistent with some studies that have found that older people generally have more positive and more complex images of aging/older age than younger people (Heckhausen, Dixon, & Baltes, 1989; Hess, 2006; Hummert, Garstka, Shaner, & Strahm, 1994; Wentura & Rothermund, 2005). It has been suggested that the greater positivity of older people’s old age stereotypes is the result of increasing experience with age, as the experience of aging tends to be more positive (or at least less negative) than common old age stereotypes would suggest (Hummert et al., 1994; Wentura & Rothermund, 2005). However, other studies have found that people in midlife have more negative attitudes toward older people (Bodner, Bergman, & Cohen-Fridel, 2012). Respondents with more formal education reported more negative perceptions of older people’s competence. It has been suggested that people with more formal education are more sensitive to (negative) competence-related age stereotypes because they presumably are more invested in their own (cognitive) competence (Hess, Hinson, & Hodges, 2009). Thus, people with more formal education may be more vigilant for negative stereotypes about older people’s competence. People with more formal education may also be exposed to certain environments (e.g., complex job environments) in which competence-related old age stereotypes are more widespread than the environments of people with less formal education. Finally, women also reported statistically significantly less positive perceptions of older people’s competence; however, the effect size of respondent gender was minute. The results of this study have several limitations. Most obviously, our results are restricted by the limited degrees
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Funding This research was completed during C. E. Bowen’s employment as postdoctoral fellow at the Jacobs University Bremen. V. Skirbekk gratefully acknowledges the financial support of a Starting Grant from the European Research Council, Grant Agreement 241003-COHORT. Acknowledgments C. E. Bowen contributed to the conceptualization of the study, conducted the statistical analyses, and cowrote the paper. V. Skirbekk contributed to the conceptualization of the study and cowrote the paper. Correspondence Correspondence should be addressed to Catherine E. Bowen, PhD, Jacobs Center on Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development, Jacobs University Bremen, Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]. References Blöndahl, S., & Scarpetta, S. (1998). The retirement decision in OECD countries (OECD Economics Dept. Working Paper No. 98). Paris: OECD. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/36/30/1866098.pdf Bodner, E., Bergman, Y. S., Cohen-Fridel, S. (2012). Different dimensions of ageist attitudes among men and women: A multi-generational perspective. International Psychogeriatrics, 24, 895–901. doi:10.1017/ S1041610211002936 Bonsang, E., Adam, S., & Perelman, S. (2012). Does retirement affect cognitive functioning? Journal of Health Economics, 31, 490–501. doi:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2012.03.005 Börsch-Supan, A., & Jürges, H. (2005). The Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe – Methodology. Mannheim, Germany: Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging. Bosak, J., Sczesny, S., & Eagly, A. H. (2008). Communion and agency judgments of women and men as a function of role information and response format. European Journal of Social Psychology, 38, 1148– 1155. doi:10.1002/ejsp.538 Bosak, J., Sczesny, S., & Eagly, A. H. (2012). The impact of social roles on trait judgments: A critical reexamination. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 429–440. doi:10.1177/0146167211427308 Carle, A. C. (2009). Fitting multilevel models in complex survey data with design weights: Recommendations. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 9, 1–13. doi:10.1186/1471-2288-9-49 Central Intelligence Agency. (2009). The World Factbook 2009. Washington, DC: Author. Cuddy, A. J. C., Fiske, S. T., Kwan, V. S. Y., Glick, P., Demoulin, S., Leyens, J., . . . Ziegler, R. (2009). Stereotype content model across cultures: Towards universal similarities and some differences. British Journal of Social Psychology, 48, 1–33. doi:10.1348/0144666 08X314935 Eagly, A. H. (1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Eagly, A. H., & Steffen, V. J. (1984). Gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of women and men into social roles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 735–754. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.46.4.735 Engelhardt, H., Buber, I., Skirbekk, V., & Prskawetz, A. (2010). Social involvement, behavioural risks and cognitive functioning among older people. Ageing and Society, 30, 779–809. doi:10.1017/ S0144686X09990626 Erlinghagen, M., & Hank, K. (2006). The participation of older Europeans in volunteer work. Ageing & Society, 26, 567–584. doi:10.1017/ S0144686X06004818 Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., & Glick, P. (2007). Universal dimensions of social cognition: Warmth and competence. Trends in Cognitive Science, 11, 77– 83. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2006.11.005 Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., Glick, P., & Xu, J. (2002). A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively
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that low participation rates in paid and volunteer work might also be associated with negative perceptions of older people’s competence in other cultural contexts (e.g., Eastern Asian) as well. Future research should replicate the current results across a broader range of cultural contexts (e.g., Western and Eastern Asian) as well as with countries representing a wider range of economic development. Although our cross-sectional data do not offer any insight into directionality, we assume that the relationship between perceptions of older people and participation in work and volunteering is reciprocal (cf. Eagly, 1987; Wood & Eagly, 2000, 2002). One the one hand, a lack of opportunities for older adults to engage in meaningful roles that allow them to express their full potential (such as paid and volunteer work) that characterizes many Western countries (structural lag; Riley & Riley, 1994) as well as a lack of meaningful contact between older and younger people (Hagestad & Uhlenberg, 2005) are both thought to be associated with more negative perceptions of older people. On the other hand, it is likely that negative perceptions of older people’s competence are a barrier to increasing older adults’ participation in meaningful roles such as paid and volunteer work (OECD, 2006; Wang & Shultz, 2010). It is possible that the creation of more opportunities for older adults to become engaged in paid and volunteer work might lead to an “upward spiral,” whereby an increase in the proportion of older people participating in paid and volunteer work might stimulate more positive perceptions of older people’s competence, which in turn might stimulate the creation of more opportunities for older adults to participate meaningfully in society. An increase in the proportion of older people in paid and volunteer work might also be associated with an increase in meaningful contact between younger and older people. In light of increasing longitudinal evidence that an engaged lifestyle, such as participation in paid or volunteer work, leads to more positive trajectories of actual competence among older adults (Bonsang et al., 2012; Hertzog, Kramer, Wilson, & Lindenberger, 2009; Stine-Morrow, Parisi, Morrow, & Park, 2008), over time increases in older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work might lead to improvements in the objective competence of older populations. Thus, increases in the participation of older people in paid and volunteer work over time may support more positive competence perceptions both by (a) supporting increases in the objective competence of the older population and (b) supporting increases in the visibility of older people in competence-related roles. Longitudinal studies are needed to tease out the extent to which national perceptions of old age are causally related to older people’s participation in work and volunteer roles across countries and vice versa, as well as potential mediators (e.g., changes in the amount of meaningful contact between older and younger people; changes in the objective competence of the older population; changes in the visibility of older people in competence-related roles) of these relationships over time.
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Society at a glance 2009 (pp. 1–131). Paris: Author. doi:10.1787/ soc_glance-2009-graphss1_2_-en OECD. (2011). Statistics on average effective age and official age of retirement in OECD countries. Paris: Author. OECD. (2012). Youth unemployment rate. In Employment and labour markets: Key tables from OECD, No. 2. doi:10.1787/unemp-ythtable-2012-1-en. Retrieved February 18, 2013, from http://www.oecdilibrary.org/employment/youth-unemployment-rate_20752342-table2 Prothro, E., & Melikian, L. (1955). Studies in stereotypes: V. Familiarity and the kernel of truth hypothesis. Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 3–10. doi:10.1080/00224545.1955.9714248 Raudenbush, S. W., Bryk, A. S., & Congdon, R. (2004). HLM 6 for Windows [Computer software]. Lincolnwood, IL: Scientific Software International. Riley, M. W., & Riley, J., Jr. (1994). Age integration and the lives of older people. The Gerontologist, 34, 110–115. doi:10.1093/ geront/34.1.110 Schmidt F.L., & Hunter, J. (2004) General mental ability in the world of work: Occupational attainment and job performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 162–173. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.86.1.162 Shmotkin, D., Blumstein, T., & Modan, B. (2003). Beyond keeping active: Concomitants of being a volunteer in old-old age. Psychology and Aging, 18, 602–607. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.18.3.602 Skirbekk, V., Loichinger, E., & Weber, D. (2012). Variation in cognitive functioning as a refined approach to comparing ageing across countries. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109, 770–774. Slotterback, C. S. (1996). Projections of aging: Impact of generational differences and the aging process on perceptions of adults. Psychology and Aging, 11, 552–559. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.11.3.552 Sokolovsky, J. (1993). Images of aging: A cross-cultural perspective. Generations, 17, 51–54. Stine-Morrow, E. L., Parisi, J. M., Morrow, D. G., & Park, D. C. (2008). The effects of an engaged lifestyle on cognitive vitality: A field experiment. Psychology and Aging, 23, 778–786. doi:10.1037/a0014341 Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (1989). Using multivariate statistics. New York, NY: Harper & Row. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. (2011). World population prospects: The 2010 revision, CD-ROM edition. Retrieved from http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/ExcelData/population.htm Wang, M., & Shultz, K. S. (2010). Employee retirement: A review and recommendations for future investigation. Journal of Management, 36, 172–206. doi:10.1177/0149206309347957 Wentura, D., & Rothermund, K. (2005). Alterssterotype und Altersbilder [Age stereotypes and images of old age]. In S.-H. Filipp & U. M. Staudinger (Eds.), Entwicklungspsychologie des mittleren und höheren Erwachsenenalters [Developmental psychology of middle and later adulthood] (pp. 616–654). Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe. Westerhof, G. J., Barrett, A. E., & Steverink, N. (2003). Forever young? A comparison of age identities in the United States and Germany. Research on Aging, 25, 366–383. doi:10.1177/0164027503252840 Wood, W., & Eagly, A. H. (2000). Once again, the origins of sex differences. American Psychologist, 55, 1062–1063. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.55.9.1062 Wood, W., & Eagly, A. H. (2002). A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: Implications for the origins of sex differences. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 699–727. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.128.5.699 World Health Organization. (2002). Active ageing: A policy framework. Geneva: Author. Retrieved July 19, 2012, from http://whqlibdoc. who.int/hq/2002/WHO_NMH_NPH_02.8.pdf World Health Organization. (2010). Life tables for WHO member states. Geneva: Author. Retrieved July 19, 2012, from http://www.who.int/ whosis/database/life_tables/life_tables.cfm
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follow from perceived status and competition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 878–902. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.82.6.878 Gavrilova, N. S., & Gavrilov, L. A. (2009). Rapidly aging populations: Russia/Eastern Europe. In P. Uhlenberg (Ed.), International handbook of population aging (pp. 113–132). New York, NY: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-8356-3_6 Goerres, A. (2009). The political participation of older people in Europe: The greying of our democracies. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Hagestad, G. O., & Uhlenberg, P. (2005). The social separation of old and young: A root of Ageism. Journal of Social Issues, 61, 343–360. doi:10.1111/j.1540-456 0.2005.00409.x Hank, K. (2011). How “successful” do older Europeans age? Findings from SHARE. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 66, 230–236. doi:10.1093/geronb/gbq089 Heckhausen, J., Dixon, R. A., & Baltes, P. B. (1989). Gains and losses in development throughout adulthood as perceived by different adult age groups. Developmental Psychology, 25, 109–121. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.25.1.109 Hertzog, C., Kramer, A. F., Wilson, R. S., & Lindenberger, U. (2009). Enrichment effects on adult cognitive development: Can the functional capacity of older adults be preserved and enhanced? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9, 1–65. doi:10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01034.x Hess, T. M. (2006). Attitudes toward aging and their effects on behavior. In J. E. Birren & K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging (6th ed., pp. 379–406). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Hess, T. M., Hinson, J. T., & Hodges, E. A. (2009). Moderators of and mechanisms underlying stereotype threat effects on older adults’ memory performance. Experimental Aging Research, 35, 153–177. doi:10.1080/03610730802716413 Hummert, M. L., Garstka, T. A., Shaner, J. L., & Strahm, S. (1994). Stereotypes of the elderly held by young, middle-aged, and elderly adults. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 49, 240–249. Judd, C. M., Park, B., Yzerbyt, V., Gordijn, E., & Muller, D. (2005). Attributions of intergroup bias and outgroup homogeneity to ingroup and outgroup others. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 677–704. doi:10.1002/ejsp.281 Jung, Y., Gruenewald, T. L., Seeman, T. E., & Sarkisian, C. A. (2010). Productive activities and development of frailty in older adults. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 65, 256–261. doi:10.1093/geronb/gbp105 Kite, M. E. (1996). Age, gender, and occupational label: A test of social role theory. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 20, 361–374. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1996.tb00305.x Kite, M. E., Stockdale, G. D., Whitley, B. E., & Johnson, B. T. (2005). Attitudes toward younger and older adults: An updated meta-analytic review. Journal of Social Issues, 61, 241–266. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.2005.00404.x Levy, B. R. (2009). Stereotype embodiment: A psychosocial approach to aging. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 332–336. Löckenhoff, C. E., De Fruyt, F., Terracciano, A., McCrae, R. R., De Bolle, M., & Costa, P. T., Jr., . . . Yik, M. (2009). Perceptions of aging across 26 cultures and their culture-level associates. Psychology and Aging, 24, 941–954. doi:10.1037/a0016901 Morrow-Howell, N. (2010). Volunteering in later life: Research frontiers. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 65, 461–469. doi:10.1093/geronb/gbq024 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (2006). Live longer, work longer: A synthesis report. Paris: Author. Retrieved July 16, 2012, from http://www.oecd.org/document/42/0,3 343,en_2649_34747_36104426_1_1_1_1,00.html OECD. (2009). Graph SS1.2. Still large differences in employment rates compared to prime-age men especially among youths and seniors: Employment rates by gender and age group, 2007*. In
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National Stereotypes of Older People’s Competence Are Related to Older Adults’ Participation in Paid and Volunteer Work Catherine E. Bowen1 and Vegard Skirbekk2 1
Jacobs Center on Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development, Jacobs University Bremen, Germany. 2 World Population, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria.
Method. We used multilevel regression to analyze data from the European Social Survey and test the relationship between perceptions of older people’s competence and older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work across 28 countries. We controlled for a number of potentially confounding variables, including life expectancy as well as the gender ratio and average education of the older population in each country. We controlled for the average objective cognitive abilities of the older population in a subsample of 11 countries. Results. Older people were perceived as more competent in countries in which more older people participated in paid or volunteer work, independent of life expectancy and the average education, gender makeup, and average cognitive abilities of the older population. Discussion. The results suggest that older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work is related to perceptions of older people’s competence independent of older people’s actual competence. Key Words: Images of aging—Old age stereotypes—Older people’s social participation—Social role theory.
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lder people tend to be viewed or stereotyped as less competent than younger people (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002; Kite, Stockdale, Whitley, & Johnson, 2005; Löckenhoff et al., 2009). At the same time that negative stereotypes regarding older people’s competence have been observed in multiple countries, there are also important cultural/country differences in the extent to which older people are perceived as (in)competent (Löckenhoff et al., 2009). Societal stereotypes about older people’s competence are important because people tend to internalize societal stereotypes, which can in turn lead to “self-fulfilling prophecies.” For instance, people who endorse more negative age stereotypes at earlier ages tend to experience more negative changes in health and even earlier death relative to people who endorse a more positive age stereotype (Levy, 2009). Negative societal stereotypes regarding older people’s competence are also thought to result in acts of age discrimination and difficulties in finding employment among older adults (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2006). Given the pervasive consequences of negative societal stereotypes regarding older people’s competence, it seems critical to identify factors that explain between-country variation in perceptions of older people’s competence, or in other words, why older 974
people in one country are seen as more competent than older people in another country. In the current study, we investigate the extent to which variation in perceptions of older people’s competence across countries is systematically related to variation in the participation of older adults in paid and volunteer work. Our investigation is based on social role theory (Eagly, 1987; Wood & Eagly, 2000, 2002), which points to the social roles of older and younger people as one potential source of old age stereotypes. We focus on the participation of the older population in paid and volunteer work as an independent variable because of (a) the empirically demonstrated association between perceptions of a person’s competence and his or her employment status (see later) and (b) the relevance of paid and volunteer work as outlets of older adults’ productivity across much of the Western world, as evidenced by various recommendations and initiatives to increase older adults’ participation in paid and volunteer work (e.g., the promotion of “active aging” by the World Health Organization, 2002; policy recommendations of the OECD, 2006). We focus on perceptions of older peoples’ competence as a dependent variable because we were particularly interested in examining how features of societies shape people’s subjective realities, though we emphatically acknowledge that the relationship between
© The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]. Received July 27, 2012; Accepted August 21, 2013 Decision Editor: Merril Silverstein, PhD
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Objectives. Why are older people perceived as more competent in some countries relative to others? In the current study, we investigate the extent to which national variation in perceptions of older people’s competence is systematically related to national variation in the extent to which older people participate in paid and volunteer work.
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both volunteering and paid work are associated with productive engagement in an organization. To our knowledge, no previous research has tested the association between the volunteer role and competence perceptions. We therefore tested in an exploratory fashion whether perceptions of older people’s competence would be differentially related to older people’s participation in paid versus volunteer work. Besides correspondence bias based on the social roles older people fulfill in different countries, differences in perceptions of older people’s competence across countries might also be due to accurate perceptions of older adults’ competencies in that particular country. Older people in some countries are likely to have better skills (i.e., be more competent) than older people in other countries (see Skirbekk, Loichinger, & Weber, 2012). For instance, based on a representative sample of the majority of those aged 50 years and older in the world, Skirbekk and colleagues (2012) found that the age at which average performance on a harmonized measure of immediate recall dropped below a given threshold (i.e., fewer than half of the words correctly recalled within 1 min) varies considerably across nations. Country differences in factors such as nutrition, living and working conditions, and early life experiences likely contribute to country differences in the cognitive performance of older populations. In particular, countries with higher average educational levels tend to have better performing older populations (Skirbekk et al., 2012). Thus, variation in national stereotypes of older people’s competence could reflect a “kernel of truth” (Prothro & Melikian, 1955). In the current study, we statistically controlled for a number of potential confounders that might otherwise explain a relationship between older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work and perceptions of older people’s competence in a given country. First, we controlled for the gender ratio (i.e., the proportion of men to women) of the population 65+ in each country. Because women tend to live longer than men, older populations tend to be disproportionately female. However, the extent to which older women outnumber older men varies considerably across countries. We controlled for the gender ratio 65+ as a potential confounder because (a) participation in paid work is associated with gender (with more men in paid employment than women; OECD, 2009, p. 73) and (b) perceptions of competence are likewise related to gender (Bosak et al., 2008, 2012; Eagly, 1987; Fiske et al., 2002, 2007). In order to specifically test that perceptions of older adults’ competence are systematically related to older adults’ participation in certain social roles, over and above their actual competence, we statistically controlled for a number of indicators of the objective competence of the older population in each country. Because working and volunteering older adults tend to be better educated, healthier, and perform better on measures of cognition as compared with nonworking or volunteering older adults (Blöndahl & Scarpetta, 1998; Bonsang, Adam, & Perelman, 2012; Engelhardt, Buber,
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stereotypes about older people and the social roles of older people is likely reciprocal (cf. Eagly, 1987; Wood & Eagly, 2000, 2002). Social role theory posits that when members of a particular social group disproportionately fulfill certain social roles (e.g., men fulfill more leadership positions than women), people tend to associate certain characteristics with the persons—and hence, the groups—fulfilling the role (e.g., men have more leadership qualities than women). Previous survey and experimental research have demonstrated that people across countries tend to associate competence-related traits with the employee role (Cuddy et al., 2009; Eagly & Steffen, 1984; Fiske et al., 2002, 2007; Kite, 1996). For instance, laboratory studies have indicated that people have a decreased tendency to negatively stereotype female targets as less competent relative to men when both men and women are described as being employees (Bosak, Sczesny, & Eagly, 2008, 2012; Eagly & Steffen, 1984). To our knowledge, only one study has investigated the relationship between individuals’ age stereotypes on the one hand and information about the social role of the older person on the other hand. In this study, knowing that the older person was employed attenuated the extent to which older people were rated as less competent than younger people (Kite, 1996). It is unknown, however, whether the positive relationship between the perceived competence of a single older person and his or her employment status on the individual level can be extrapolated to explain phenomena on the group level, i.e., whether older people are perceived as more competent in social contexts (e.g., countries) in which more older people are working. Currently, older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work varies widely across countries. For instance, average effective retirement ages differ by up to 15 years within the OECD (2011). Based on social role theory and in line with previous studies on the association between employment status and stereotypical perceptions of competence, we hypothesized that older adults would be perceived as more competent in countries in which more older adults participate in paid and/or volunteer work. To test this hypothesis, we used data from the fourth wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) 2008/2009 (http://www. europeansocialsurvey.org/). The ESS is a representative survey of more than 50,000 participants in 28 countries, across Europe and in Israel and Turkey, which includes information on both perceptions of different age groups and participation in paid and volunteer work roles. The ESS sample of European countries is well suited for studying the relationship between perceptions of older people’s competence and older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work because there is substantial cross-national variation in older people’s participation in paid work (OECD, 2011) and volunteering (Erlinghagen & Hank, 2006) across the European countries. Like paid work, we assume that volunteer work likewise acts as a signal of competence because
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Method Sample The data were collected in 2008 from 54,988 participants aged 12–101 years. The surveys were designed to give nationally representative samples of the population aged 15 years and older in each country and consisted of at least 1,500 participants for each of the 28 countries. In this study, we were interested in stereotypes of older people, from the perspective of younger people (i.e., other- as opposed to self-stereotypes). Thus, we examined the perceptions of older people’s competence of the 43,376 participants aged below 65 years as our dependent variable. Respondents were on average 40.53 years old (standard deviation [SD] = 13.81) and had an average of 12.47 years of formal education (SD = 3.83). The respondent sample was more or less equally split between women (53.5%) and men (46.5%). Data from the 11,613 ESS participants aged 65 and older were used to calculate participation rates of the older population in paid and volunteer work and average years of education of the older population in each country (see later). The cognition subsample was composed of participants from the 11 countries (Belgium, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, Greece, Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden) for which cognition data were available (n = 17,442). Missing data on all variables on the individual level were imputed using the expectation maximization algorithm in SPSS 20 prior to analyses. Measures Perception of older people’s competence.—Perceptions of older people’s competence were measured with a single item, “Most people in [country] view those over 70 as
competent.” Participants answered the item using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 0 (not at all likely to be viewed that way) to 4 (very likely to be viewed that way). Older people’s participation in paid and/or volunteer work roles.—Older participants (65+) of the ESS indicated their participation in a volunteer role and/or paid work role by answering the item, “In the last month have you done any paid or voluntary work?” Participants could respond, 1 = “yes, paid work only”; 2 = “yes, volunteer work only”; 3 = “yes, both volunteer and paid work”; or 4 = “neither.” We used responses to this item to create three separate variables, one concerning participation in either paid or volunteer work consisting of people who answered 1, 2, or 3; one concerning participation in volunteer work consisting of people who answered 2 or 3; and one concerning participation in paid work consisting of people who answered 1 or 3 to this item. We used this information to calculate the proportion of the population 65+ participating in paid and/ or volunteer work roles for each country (aggregated using design weights from the ESS). Control Variables Respondent-level control variables.—We controlled for respondent demographics as well as respondents’ perceptions of younger people’s competence to control for answer tendencies. Respondents indicated their year of birth, years of education (rounded to the nearest whole year), and their gender. Perceptions of younger people’s competence were measured with a single item, “Most people in [country] view those in their 20s as competent.” Participants answered the item using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 0 (not at all likely to be viewed that way) to 4 (very likely to be viewed that way) (M = 2.42, SD = 1.01). Average education, population 65+.—Older participants (65+) of the ESS reported the number of years of education they had completed (rounded to the nearest whole year). We used this information to calculate the average years of education for the population 65+ for each country (aggregated using the design weights supplied by the ESS). Average life expectancy.—Statistics for the average life expectancy for 2008 were obtained from the online archives of the World Health Organization (2010; http://www.who. int/research/en/). Gender ratio, population 65+.—Statistics for the gender ratio (men:women; higher values indicate more men) for the population 65+ in 2008 for each country were obtained from the CIA World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency, 2009; https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/ the-world-factbook/).
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Skirbekk, & Prskawetz, 2010; Erlinghagen & Hank, 2006; Jung, Gruenewald, Seeman, & Sarkisian, 2010; MorrowHowell, 2010; Shmotkin, Blumstein, & Modan, 2003; Wang & Shultz, 2010), we controlled for the average years of education of the population 65+ as well as average life expectancy (as an indicator of health of the older population) as potential confounders. Finally, in a subsample of the countries, we were able to control for variation in the average objective cognitive abilities of the older populations in the sample by using scores from standardized cognitive measures available from nationally representative surveys as an objective indicator of the average (cognitive) competence of each country’s older population. Cognitive ability measures have been found to predict work performance better than other individual characteristics that could be observed before the individual is employed (Schmidt & Hunter 2004). Thus, objective cognitive ability provides a reasonable control for the selectivity of older adults in the work and volunteer force.
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separate variables in the model instead of the single participation in paid or volunteer work variable. We also compared the 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the estimates of the coefficients for older people’s participation in volunteering versus older people’s participation in paid work. In the analyses of the cognition subsample, we once again controlled for respondent controls (respondent age, gender, and education; perceived competence of younger people) on the respondent level. Due to the limited degrees of freedom on the country level in the cognition subsample (k = 11), we entered only the older people’s participation in either paid or volunteer work variable and one of the cognition variables at the country level in a single model (i.e., three different models were tested; Model 1: with average immediate recall 65+, Model 2: with average delayed recall 65+, Model 3: with average verbal fluency 65+). In a follow-up analysis, we also checked whether the results would hold when using a single index of “average cognitive abilities 65+” based on an average of the z-scores of each of the three cognition measures (immediate recall, delayed recall, verbal fluency). In light of the results from the analysis of the full sample and the reduced number of countries in the cognitive subsample, we specifically tested the one-sided hypothesis that older people’s participation in paid or volunteer work would be positively associated with perceptions of older people’s competence. Hence, we used the results of less conservative one-sided t tests to interpret the statistical significance of older people’s participation in paid or volunteer work in the analysis of the cognitive subsample.
Data Analysis Strategy We used a two-level multilevel regression approach. This method allows us to control for the dependency of individuals nested within countries. The software HLM 6.06 was used for all analyses (Raudenbush, Bryk, & Congdon, 2004). We compared the unweighted as well as two alternative scaled design weights models (Carle, 2009). All variables were grand mean centered. We first corrected for differences between the survey samples in the different countries by controlling for respondent age, gender, and education as well as ratings of the competence of people in their 20s at the respondent level. We then entered the paid and volunteer work participation rates of the population 65+ and the control variables (gender ratio 65+, average education 65+, average life expectancy) on the country level. Next, we explored whether participation of the population 65+ in volunteering had a different relationship with perceptions of older people’s competence than participation of the population 65+ in paid work by testing whether model fit was improved (based on the change in model deviance under full maximum likelihood estimation; Raudenbush et al., 2004) when the volunteering participation rates 65+ and paid work participation rates 65+ were entered as two
Results Across all countries, respondents indicated that older people were slightly more likely than not to be viewed as competent (M = 2.40, SD = 0.29). Figure 1 displays the overall distribution of the perceived competence variable. There were significant differences between countries with regard to the extent to which older people were perceived as competent. Overall, 7% of the overall variance in perceptions of older people’s competence was explained by between-country differences (calculated as country-level variance relative to overall variance). The country-average perceptions of older people’s competence ranged from 1.86 (Poland) to 3.03 (Hungary). Descriptive statistics regarding country-average perceptions of older people’s competence, older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work, gender ratio 65+, average education 65+, average life expectancy, and average cognitive abilities 65+ in each of the countries in the current sample are displayed in Table 1. Table 2 displays the means, SDs, and intervariable correlations among the country-level variables in the full sample (panel a) and the cognition subsample (panel b). Table 3 displays the results of the multilevel regression analyses. Because results between the unweighted models
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Average cognitive ability, population 65+.—Cognitive data from the The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) (Börsch-Supan & Jürges, 2005) were available for a subsample (k = 11) of the countries in the current analysis. SHARE included three measures of cognition: immediate recall, delayed recall, and verbal fluency. All three cognition measures were conducted via telephone interview. We used the SHARE scores for the participants aged 65 and older and the population estimates from the United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2011) to calculate the average cognitive abilities of the population 65+ in each country. Average immediate recall (65+) was based on the average proportion of words from a list of 10 that older participants in a given country could correctly recall within 1 min. Average delayed recall (65+) was based on the average proportion of words from the same initial list that older participants in a given country correctly recalled approximately 5 min later. Average verbal fluency (65+) was based on the average number of animals that older participants in a given country named within 1 min. Although cognition data were also available for Russia, we excluded Russia from the cognition subsample because Russia was an outlier (z > 2.5) with regard to both life expectancy and the gender ratio of the population 65+ and because previous research has demonstrated that the Russian older population differs markedly from the older populations of the other countries in the cognition subsample (e.g., due to high working age mortality as well as historical and economic circumstances; see Gavrilova & Gavrilov, 2009).
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and the two models with scaled design weights did not differ, we display only the unweighted results. In line with our hypothesis, older people were perceived as more competent in countries in which a greater proportion of older people participated in paid or volunteer work. The proportion of older people participating in paid or volunteer work accounted for 27.49% of the variance between countries. Model fit was not improved by separately entering older people’s participation in volunteering and older people’s participation in paid work into the model, χ2(1) = 0.4, p = .52. Based on the 95% CI estimates of the coefficients, there was no indication that the strength of the relationship between perceptions of older people’s competence and older people’s participation in volunteering (B = 1.77, SE = 0.69, t(22) = 2.57, p = .02, 95% CI [0.34–3.20]) differed in either direction or strength from the relationship between perceptions of older people’s competence and older people’s participation in paid work (B = 2.69, SE = 1.29, t(22) = 2.08, p = .05, 95% CI [0.01–5.36]). As shown in Table 2 (panel b), average cognition scores of the population 65+ were positively correlated with participation in paid or volunteer work of the population 65+ in the cognition subsample. However, as displayed in Table 3, none of the cognition measures were significantly related to perceptions of older people’s competence once older people’s participation in either paid or volunteer work was entered into the model (all ps ≥ .32). In contrast, participation in either volunteering or paid work remained significantly related to competence perceptions after controlling
for immediate recall and delayed recall, one-sided p = .02 and p = .04, respectively. Likewise, there was a trend that participation in either paid or volunteer work was related to competence perceptions after controlling for verbal fluency, one-sided p = .106. Using a single index of “average cognitive abilities 65+” based on an average of the z-scores of each of the three cognition measures (immediate recall, delayed recall, verbal fluency) yielded results consistent with the results obtained when using each of the cognitive indicators separately. Namely, the relationship between older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work and perceptions of older people’s competence was significant after controlling for the average cognitive abilities of the population 65+, B = 1.89 (1.00), t(8) = 1.89, one-sided p = .05. In contrast, there was no relationship between average cognitive abilities of the population 65+ and perceptions of older people’s competence once older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work was entered into the model, B = 0.06 (0.12), t(8) = 0.52, one-sided p = .31. Discussion Overall, younger people across Europe report that older people are somewhat more likely than not to be perceived as competent in their country. In line with social role theory (Eagly, 1987; Wood & Eagly, 2000, 2002), our results indicate that older people are perceived as more competent in countries in which a higher proportion of older adults
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Figure 1. Distribution of perceptions of older people’s competence.
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Table 1. Country Characteristics Across Study Variables
Country
Proportion of 65+ paid/ volunteer work
Gender ratio, 65+
Life expectancy (years)
Years education, 65+
Imm. recall, 65+
Del. recall, 65+
Verbal fluency, 65+
2.46 2.59 1.91 2.26 2.10 2.47 2.78 2.65 2.37 2.22 2.04 3.03 2.15 2.74 2.49 2.65 1.86 2.56 2.46 2.70 2.10 1.98 2.63 2.48 2.41 2.20 2.30 2.54
.23 .08 .03 .08 .14 .35 .19 .20 .23 .20 .07 .07 .25 .11 .42 .36 .08 .07 .10 .09 .09 .11 .07 .27 .25 .02 .23 .11
.70 .70 .63 .77 .64 .76 .50 .67 .71 .71 .78 .57 .75 .49 .74 .74 .62 .70 .70 .46 .60 .63 .72 .78 .70 .84 .75 .51
80 73 76 80 77 79 74 80 81 80 80 74 81 71 80 81 76 79 73 68 75 79 81 81 82 74 80 68
11.13 9.60 8.58 7.67 11.86 10.43 10.53 9.33 10.41 12.12 7.61 10.36 12.10 10.48 11.24 11.15 8.97 4.25 8.52 10.04 12.35 9.87 6.28 10.54 10.55 3.03 11.98 10.21
.30
.46
18.94
.29 .39
.46 .52
17.80 19.88
.26 .33 .28
.39 .49 .42
17.46 19.00 13.23
.34
.49
17.70
.21
.35
13.38
.20 .36 .33
.31 .49 .48
13.18 21.29 18.86
Notes. UK = United Kingdom. Gender ratio 65+: the proportion of men to women within the population 65 years and older. Imm. recall = immediate recall; average proportion of words from a list of 10 that older participants in a given country could correctly recall within 1 min. Del. recall = delayed recall; average proportion of words from the same initial list that older participants in a given country correctly recalled approximately 5 min later. Verbal fluency: average number of animals that older participants in a given country named within 1 min. The data in column 3 (gender ratio 65+, 2008) are from the CIA World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency, 2009). The data in column 4 (average life expectancy) are from the online archives of the World Health Organization (2010).
Table 2. Means, SDs, Ranges, and Intervariable Correlations of Country-Level Variables
(a) Full sample (N = 43,376, k = 28) 1. Paid/volunteer work 65+ 2. Education 65+ (years) 3. Life expectancy (years) 4. Gender ratio 65+ 5. Older people’s competence (b) Cognition subsample (n = 17,442, k = 11) 1. Paid/volunteer work 65+ 2. Immediate recall 65+ 3. Delayed recall 65+ 4. Fluency 65+ 5. Older people’s competence
M (SD)
Range
1
2
0.16 (0.11) 9.69 (2.26) 77.25 (4.04) 0.67 (0.10) 2.40 (0.29)
0.02–0.42 3.03–12.35 68–82 0.46–0.84 1.86– 3.03
.57** .51** .29 .19
.07 .28 .03
0.21 (0.11) 0.44 (0.06) 0.30 (0.06) 17.34 (2.83) 2.32 (0.23)
0.07– 0.42 0.31–0.52 0.20–0.39 13.18–21.29 1.86–2.63
.75** .79** .74** .54
.97** .84*** .44
3
4
−.72*** −.26
−.32
.85*** .32
.19
Notes. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.
participate in paid and volunteer work. Variation in the participation of older people in volunteering and paid working roles across countries was related to variation in perceptions of older people’s competence over and above average life expectancy, and the average education and gender ratio of each country’s older population, as well as the older population’s average objective cognitive abilities. Please
note that using average self-reported health of the population 65+ as an alternative indicator of the health of each country’s older population in place of average life expectancy did not change the results. With regard to perceptions of older people’s competence, there was no indication that it matters whether older adults participate in paid or volunteer work; both participation in volunteering and paid work
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Belgium Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Israel Latvia Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russian Federation Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey UK Ukraine
Perceived competence older people
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Table 3. Results of the Multilevel Regression Analyses for Variables Predicting Perceptions of Older People’s Competence Full samplea (N = 43,376; k = 28)
Cognition subsampleb (n = 17,442; k = 11) Model 1
Model 3
t
B (SE)
t
B (SE)
t
B (SE)
t
2.40 (0.05) 0.17 (0.00) 0.01 (0.00) −0.03 (0.01) −0.02 (0.00)
47.18*** 35.41*** 15.40*** −2.71** −11.87***
2.32 (0.06) 0.16 (0.01) 0.01 (0.00) −0.05 (0.01) −0.02 (0.00)
36.31*** 19.71*** 12.88*** −3.82*** −9.31***
2.32 (0.07) 0.16 (0.01) 0.01 (0.00) −0.05 (0.01) −0.02 (0.00)
34.78*** 19.71*** 12.88*** −3.82*** −9.31***
2.32 (0.07) 0.16 (0.01) 0.01 (0.00) −0.05 (0.01) −0.02 (0.02)
34.24*** 19.71*** 12.88*** −3.82*** −9.31***
2.37 (0.75) −1.50 (0.91) −0.06 (0.03) −0.03 (0.02)
3.17** −1.65 −1.64 −1.28
2.18 (0.88)
2.47*c
1.95 (0.99)
1.97*c
1.25 (0.92)
1.36†c
0.01 (0.04)
0.33
−1.64 (1.56)
−1.06 −1.12 (1.86)
−0.60
Notes. aStatistics refer to t tests with 43,367 and 23 degrees of freedom for the respondent level and the country level including the intercept, respectively. b Statistics refer to t tests with 17,435 and 8 degrees of freedom for the respondent level and the country level including the intercept, respectively. c Statistical significance based on one-sided t tests. † p ≤ .11. *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.
were related positively to perceptions of older adults’ competence, and model fit did not change when the predictors were entered separately into the model. The positive bivariate correlation on the country level between average cognition and participation in paid or volunteer work of the population 65+ in the cognition subsample (see Table 2, panel b) is consistent with findings that working and volunteering older adults are more cognitively fit than their nonworking and nonvolunteering age peers (Blöndahl & Scarpetta, 1998; Bonsang et al., 2012; Engelhardt et al., 2010; Erlinghagen & Hank, 2006; Jung et al., 2010; Morrow-Howell, 2010; Shmotkin et al., 2003; Wang & Shultz, 2010). However, none of the average objective cognition indicators (average immediate recall, average delayed recall, and average verbal fluency of the population 65+) were significantly related to ratings of older people’s competence after controlling for older people’s participation in work and volunteering roles. Hence, as far as the cognitive measures capture international variation in the objective competence of the older population in each country, our results suggest that older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work is positively related to perceptions of older people’s competence independent of older people’s actual competence. Still, we caution that the low sample size for the subset of countries with cognition information (k = 11) restricts the statistical power to make inferences. Older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work accounted for about a third of the variance in perceptions of older people’s competence between countries. Our results imply that social policies and structural factors at the country level that create opportunities for older adults to participate in work and volunteer roles may contribute to more positive perceptions of older adults’ competence. Similarly,
based on the wide variation in the proportion of older adults aging “successfully” (free of disease, socially engaged, and with maintained cognitive performance) across the countries participating in the SHARE survey, Hank (2011) concluded that structural factors at the societal level are closely related to successful aging opportunities over and above individuallevel factors. In addition to older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work, traditional mythology and cultural beliefs (Sokolovsky, 1993), social and economic policies (e.g., provisions for older people; Westerhof, Barrett, & Steverink, 2003), as well as between-country variation in the political participation and power of older adults (Goerres, 2009) might also explain variation in perceptions of older people’s competence across countries. The relationship between older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work and perceptions of older people’s competence seems to be stronger in some countries than in others. In particular, Hungary stands out as one country with a particularly positive stereotype of older people’s competence despite low participation of older adults in paid and volunteer work, although we do not have any explanation for this. Notably, in the current study, respondents reported that the perceived competence of people aged 70 and older was more or less equivalent to the perceived competence of people in their 20s (as seen from comparing the overall means). This particular finding is somewhat at odds with previous research that older people tend to be viewed or stereotyped as less competent than younger people (Fiske et al. 2002, 2007; Kite et al., 2005; Löckenhoff et al., 2009). The difference in findings may be due to differences in measurement (e.g., in the definition of younger and older people) and/or differences in the respondent samples (e.g., student samples vs the wide age range in the current sample) across studies.
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Respondent level Intercept Younger people’s competence Age Female (dummy) Education Country level Paid/volunteer work 65+ Gender ratio 65+ Education 65+ Life expectancy Immediate recall 65+ Delayed recall 65+ Fluency 65+
Model 2
B (SE)
Older People Perceived Competence/Roles
of freedom on the country level, especially in the cognition subsample, though we were above the minimum “five cases per independent variable” rule of thumb for regression (Tabachnick & Fidell, 1989). Another important limitation is that perceptions of older people’s competence were measured with a single self-report item. Such a cursory assessment does not allow us to estimate the validity of the item nor does a single item fully capture the complexity of cultural differences in perceptions of older people’s competence: Perceptions of competence may be multidimensional (e.g., competence with regard to performing basic everyday tasks, knowledge- and skill-based competence, social competence) and different dimensions of competence may be more or less sensitive to country differences. In addition, the item formulation does not allow us to disentangle the extent to which perceptions of older people’s competence reflect younger people’s perceptions of the aging process from younger people’s perceptions of a different generation (cf. Slotterback, 1996). Furthermore, it should be noted that respondents were asked what “most people” think, as opposed to what they personally believe. Thus, to be precise, our dependent variable represents individuals’ meta-perceptions (how they think other people think) of older people’s competence, as opposed to their own beliefs. Because research suggests that people generally tend to assume that other people hold more negative stereotypes than they do to themselves (Judd, Park, Yzerbyt, Gordijn, & Muller, 2005), it can be expected that the dependent measure used in the current study elicits more negative responses as opposed to a measures of an individual’s own perceptions of older people’s competence (e.g., “I view people over 70 as competent”). Therefore, the current results may underestimate the extent to which older people are perceived as competent. Due to the negative bias associated with people’s perceptions of other people’s stereotypes, the use of respondents’ perceptions of younger people’s competence as a statistical control, and the fact that our independent variables (e.g., older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work) and our dependent variable (perceptions of older people’s competence) stemmed from two distinct sources, our results cannot be explained by either single-source bias nor the use of a positively biased attitudinal measure. Finally, the current sample is restricted to a relatively small sample of European countries. The relationship between perceptions of older people’s competence and older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work may be fundamentally different in other cultural contexts. For instance, older people’s participation in work and volunteer roles may be less closely tied to perceptions of older people’s competence in countries in which participation in civic society (vs the family) is less highly valued and in countries in which employment and volunteering are less associated with competence relative to the European countries in our sample. Notably, empirical research has demonstrated that employment status is associated with competence stereotypes across both Western and Eastern Asian contexts (Cuddy et al., 2009). Thus, there is at least some reason to believe
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Alternatively, there may be some national contexts in which younger people are seen as less competent than older people. Future research with regard to the relationship between younger people’s social roles and perceptions of younger people’s competence would be fruitful for further supporting the general tenets of social role theory. For instance, following from the argumentation in the current article, differing rates of youth unemployment (e.g., 51.1% of the total youth labor force aged 15–24 is unemployed in Spain; OECD, 2012) may be systematically related to national stereotypes of younger people’s competence. In the current study, we were interested in explaining variance between countries as opposed to explaining variance between individuals. Importantly, between-country differences only accounted for a small proportion of the overall variance in individuals’ perceptions of older people’s competence. This result is in line with the results of a study of students’ stereotypes of older people across 26 countries (Löckenhoff et al., 2009). Although factors related to interindividual differences with regard to perceptions of older people’s competence were not the focus of the current study, it is worth noting that higher respondent age was associated with more positive perceptions of older people’s competence (see Table 3). The association between higher age and more positive perceptions of older people’s competence is consistent with some studies that have found that older people generally have more positive and more complex images of aging/older age than younger people (Heckhausen, Dixon, & Baltes, 1989; Hess, 2006; Hummert, Garstka, Shaner, & Strahm, 1994; Wentura & Rothermund, 2005). It has been suggested that the greater positivity of older people’s old age stereotypes is the result of increasing experience with age, as the experience of aging tends to be more positive (or at least less negative) than common old age stereotypes would suggest (Hummert et al., 1994; Wentura & Rothermund, 2005). However, other studies have found that people in midlife have more negative attitudes toward older people (Bodner, Bergman, & Cohen-Fridel, 2012). Respondents with more formal education reported more negative perceptions of older people’s competence. It has been suggested that people with more formal education are more sensitive to (negative) competence-related age stereotypes because they presumably are more invested in their own (cognitive) competence (Hess, Hinson, & Hodges, 2009). Thus, people with more formal education may be more vigilant for negative stereotypes about older people’s competence. People with more formal education may also be exposed to certain environments (e.g., complex job environments) in which competence-related old age stereotypes are more widespread than the environments of people with less formal education. Finally, women also reported statistically significantly less positive perceptions of older people’s competence; however, the effect size of respondent gender was minute. The results of this study have several limitations. Most obviously, our results are restricted by the limited degrees
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Funding This research was completed during C. E. Bowen’s employment as postdoctoral fellow at the Jacobs University Bremen. V. Skirbekk gratefully acknowledges the financial support of a Starting Grant from the European Research Council, Grant Agreement 241003-COHORT. Acknowledgments C. E. Bowen contributed to the conceptualization of the study, conducted the statistical analyses, and cowrote the paper. V. Skirbekk contributed to the conceptualization of the study and cowrote the paper. Correspondence Correspondence should be addressed to Catherine E. Bowen, PhD, Jacobs Center on Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development, Jacobs University Bremen, Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]. References Blöndahl, S., & Scarpetta, S. (1998). The retirement decision in OECD countries (OECD Economics Dept. Working Paper No. 98). Paris: OECD. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/36/30/1866098.pdf Bodner, E., Bergman, Y. S., Cohen-Fridel, S. (2012). Different dimensions of ageist attitudes among men and women: A multi-generational perspective. International Psychogeriatrics, 24, 895–901. doi:10.1017/ S1041610211002936 Bonsang, E., Adam, S., & Perelman, S. (2012). Does retirement affect cognitive functioning? Journal of Health Economics, 31, 490–501. doi:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2012.03.005 Börsch-Supan, A., & Jürges, H. (2005). The Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe – Methodology. Mannheim, Germany: Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging. Bosak, J., Sczesny, S., & Eagly, A. H. (2008). Communion and agency judgments of women and men as a function of role information and response format. European Journal of Social Psychology, 38, 1148– 1155. doi:10.1002/ejsp.538 Bosak, J., Sczesny, S., & Eagly, A. H. (2012). The impact of social roles on trait judgments: A critical reexamination. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 429–440. doi:10.1177/0146167211427308 Carle, A. C. (2009). Fitting multilevel models in complex survey data with design weights: Recommendations. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 9, 1–13. doi:10.1186/1471-2288-9-49 Central Intelligence Agency. (2009). The World Factbook 2009. Washington, DC: Author. Cuddy, A. J. C., Fiske, S. T., Kwan, V. S. Y., Glick, P., Demoulin, S., Leyens, J., . . . Ziegler, R. (2009). Stereotype content model across cultures: Towards universal similarities and some differences. British Journal of Social Psychology, 48, 1–33. doi:10.1348/0144666 08X314935 Eagly, A. H. (1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Eagly, A. H., & Steffen, V. J. (1984). Gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of women and men into social roles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 735–754. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.46.4.735 Engelhardt, H., Buber, I., Skirbekk, V., & Prskawetz, A. (2010). Social involvement, behavioural risks and cognitive functioning among older people. Ageing and Society, 30, 779–809. doi:10.1017/ S0144686X09990626 Erlinghagen, M., & Hank, K. (2006). The participation of older Europeans in volunteer work. Ageing & Society, 26, 567–584. doi:10.1017/ S0144686X06004818 Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., & Glick, P. (2007). Universal dimensions of social cognition: Warmth and competence. Trends in Cognitive Science, 11, 77– 83. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2006.11.005 Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., Glick, P., & Xu, J. (2002). A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively
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that low participation rates in paid and volunteer work might also be associated with negative perceptions of older people’s competence in other cultural contexts (e.g., Eastern Asian) as well. Future research should replicate the current results across a broader range of cultural contexts (e.g., Western and Eastern Asian) as well as with countries representing a wider range of economic development. Although our cross-sectional data do not offer any insight into directionality, we assume that the relationship between perceptions of older people and participation in work and volunteering is reciprocal (cf. Eagly, 1987; Wood & Eagly, 2000, 2002). One the one hand, a lack of opportunities for older adults to engage in meaningful roles that allow them to express their full potential (such as paid and volunteer work) that characterizes many Western countries (structural lag; Riley & Riley, 1994) as well as a lack of meaningful contact between older and younger people (Hagestad & Uhlenberg, 2005) are both thought to be associated with more negative perceptions of older people. On the other hand, it is likely that negative perceptions of older people’s competence are a barrier to increasing older adults’ participation in meaningful roles such as paid and volunteer work (OECD, 2006; Wang & Shultz, 2010). It is possible that the creation of more opportunities for older adults to become engaged in paid and volunteer work might lead to an “upward spiral,” whereby an increase in the proportion of older people participating in paid and volunteer work might stimulate more positive perceptions of older people’s competence, which in turn might stimulate the creation of more opportunities for older adults to participate meaningfully in society. An increase in the proportion of older people in paid and volunteer work might also be associated with an increase in meaningful contact between younger and older people. In light of increasing longitudinal evidence that an engaged lifestyle, such as participation in paid or volunteer work, leads to more positive trajectories of actual competence among older adults (Bonsang et al., 2012; Hertzog, Kramer, Wilson, & Lindenberger, 2009; Stine-Morrow, Parisi, Morrow, & Park, 2008), over time increases in older people’s participation in paid and volunteer work might lead to improvements in the objective competence of older populations. Thus, increases in the participation of older people in paid and volunteer work over time may support more positive competence perceptions both by (a) supporting increases in the objective competence of the older population and (b) supporting increases in the visibility of older people in competence-related roles. Longitudinal studies are needed to tease out the extent to which national perceptions of old age are causally related to older people’s participation in work and volunteer roles across countries and vice versa, as well as potential mediators (e.g., changes in the amount of meaningful contact between older and younger people; changes in the objective competence of the older population; changes in the visibility of older people in competence-related roles) of these relationships over time.
Older People Perceived Competence/Roles
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