Page 246 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

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stereotypes about older workers (stability versus declining health), and
the type of indices of absenteeism studied.
A host of studies provided evidence that older workers are perceived
as more reliable, stable, and dependable (c.f., Crew, 1983; Ringenbach &
Jacobs, 1994; Rosen & Jerdee, 1976a) than are younger workers. On the
other hand, stereotypes abound that older workers are expected to have
higher absence rates because of poor health (Prenda & Stahl, 2001). In light
of these conflicting stereotypes, it is not surprising that the conceptual
(Rhodes, 1983) and empirical (Hackett, 1990; Martocchio, 1990) reviews of
the age-absenteeism relationship have produced mixed results.
Goldberg and Waldman (2000) provided evidence that the predictors
of absenteeism vary as a function of the type of absence measure studied.
Martocchio (1989) included indices of absence frequency and of time-lost
in his meta-analytic review of age and absenteeism. Although a stronger
negative relationship was observed between age and absence frequency
than between age and time-lost, both effects were statistically significant.
Hackett (1990) divided absence measures into classifications of avoidable
(snow days) and unavoidable (sickness) in his meta-analysis and found the
negative relationship between age and absenteeism exists only for avoid­
able absenteeism. Thus, the notion that older employees ought to be absent
more than younger employees because of age-related health problems ap­
pears to be unfounded.

Training and Development

With increasing changes in technology in the workplace and reorganiza­
tions that require employees to take on new tasks, the ability of employees
to learn new skills has become paramount. At the same time, there is ev­
idence that information processing speed declines with age (Salthouse,
1985), as does working memory (Baddeley, 1986), and attentional abilities
(Craik & McDowd, 1987). In contrast, there is also evidence that intellec­
tual abilities that involve verbal skills do not change with age (Botwinick,
1967,1977). Likewise, crystallized intelligence tends to decline at a much
later age than fluid intelligence does (Schaie, 1989). Taken together, these
results do not suggest that older workers are less able to learn; rather, they
underscore the need for organizations to consider different training and
development approaches as people age in order to optimize learning.
Sandra Timmerman of the Mature Market Institute argues (Wellner,
p. 32, March, 2002), "People learn differently as they age. Because your
reaction time is slower, it's more difficult to learn things by rote memory."
She contends that older workers perform better in self-paced learning envi­
ronments that are pressure-free. Likewise, Maurer, Wrenn, and Weiss (2001)