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Human Relations
[0018-7267(200105)54:5]
Volume 54(5): 629661: 017086
Copyright 2001
The Tavistock Institute
SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks CA,
New Delhi

Age stereotypes and discriminatory


attitudes towards older workers: An
EastWest comparison
Warren C.K. Chiu, Andy W. Chan, Ed Snape and Tom Redman

A B S T R AC T

This study compared age stereotypes among 567 respondents


sampled in the UK and Hong Kong and examined how these
stereotypes were related to discriminatory attitudes at work.
Compared to the Hong Kong sample, UK respondents saw older
workers as more effective at work, but less adaptable to change.
As expected, respondents own age was predictive of positive
age stereotypes, although for supervisors this relationship was
moderated in the case of perceptions of work effectiveness.
Stereotypical beliefs were found to significantly affect respondents attitudes towards the training, promotion and retention
of older workers, their willingness to work with older workers,
and their support for positive discrimination. Findings also
suggest that anti-age discrimination policies in the respondents
organization had a positive impact on beliefs about the adaptability of older workers and possibly also on attitudes towards
providing them with training. Implications of the findings were
discussed in light of the existing socio-political environment in
the UK and Hong Kong.

KEYWORDS

age discrimination  age stereotypes  equal opportunities 


human resource management

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Introduction
Older workers have often encountered age discrimination from employers,
for example through explicit age bars on job advertisements and less
favourable treatment in recruitment, promotion and training (see, for
example: Walker & Taylor, 1993). A possible reason for this discrimination
is that older workers may be perceived as having certain undesirable characteristics, including poor health, an inflexible attitude, resistance to change
and low trainability. There is now a significant amount of research on such
stereotypical beliefs in Western societies (see, for example: Doering et al.,
1983; Hassell & Perrewe, 1995; Institute of Personnel Management, 1993;
Kite & Johnson, 1993; Metcalf & Thompson, 1990; Taylor & Walker, 1992;
Tillsley, 1990). Such beliefs about older workers, held by work colleagues,
employers and by customers, may influence employment decisions and thus
give rise to age discrimination.
This article deals with three basic questions. First, to what extent are
the kinds of stereotypical beliefs about older workers found in Western
societies also characteristic of Hong Kong? Here, we are interested in the relative strength of such beliefs in Western and Eastern societies. Second, what
other factors appear to influence such beliefs? Much of the existing literature
focuses on individual-level variables, whilst in this article we also examine
country and organizational-level variables. Third, are stereotypical beliefs
related to discriminatory attitudes towards older workers, in particular concerning their treatment on employment matters, and does this relationship
differ between East and West?
We attempt to answer these questions through an analysis of survey
data collected in the UK and Hong Kong. Whilst the choice of the UK and
Hong Kong reflect the location of the researchers involved, and in that sense
are chance selections, nevertheless the two serve to represent some of the key
differences between Western and Eastern societies, respectively. The UK
has been characterized as an individualistic society with a relatively low tolerance for inequalities of power and income (Hofstede, 1980). In contrast,
Hong Kong has been seen as having many of the key characteristics of a
Chinese society, in particular a high degree of collectivism and a strong
respect for hierarchy (Bond, 1996; Hofstede, 1980). Thus, the UKHong
Kong comparison promises to provide some useful insights into EastWest
differences in attitudes to older workers. Of course, Hong Kong has recently
emerged from 150 years of British colonial rule and it is likely that this will
have left its mark on Hong Kong society. Furthermore, as a now advanced
economy with extensive contact with international business, Hong Kong is
arguably more likely than some other Asian societies to be subject to forces

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of modernization and convergence (Sparrow et al., 1994). Thus, our Hong


KongUK comparison may understate the attitudinal differences between
East and West which might be found by observing other Asian societies. To
the extent that this is true, the present comparison represents a conservative
test of the impact of culture on ageist attitudes.
After a brief discussion of the policy debates in Hong Kong and the
UK, this article examines the literature on stereotypical beliefs about older
workers. We derive a set of hypotheses, which are then tested using our Hong
Kong and UK survey data. The article concludes with a discussion of the
implications of our findings.

Age discrimination in Hong Kong


One of the principles of traditional Chinese culture is to respect ones elders
(Mencius, 1, 1, 7, 12; see Chen, 1990: 211). However, in employment
relationships, discrimination on the grounds of age is a long-neglected issue,
both in the private and the public sectors. In the 1995 Governors employment summit, comprising representatives from employers, unions and
government, union leaders quoted cases of employers preferring to recruit
younger applicants and selectively retrenching older workers (South China
Morning Post, 8 November 1995: 8; South China Morning Post, 10 November 1995: 4), and union officials and leaders of grassroots societies urged
the Hong Kong government to take action to protect older workers displaced from their jobs due to economic restructuring (Christian Times, 1
May 1994: 1).
In keeping with its laissez-faire approach to the economy, Hong Kong
has been slower than the UK to develop legislation on equal opportunities.
The government had no concrete proposals until 1993, when it published a
consultative Green Paper on Equal Opportunities For Women and Men.
Even then, the paper focused mainly on gender and disability, rather than on
age. Whilst 1995 saw the enactment of Sex Discrimination and Disability
Discrimination Ordinances, the bill covering age discrimination was voted
down (South China Morning Post, 29 July 1995: 1). This reflected a view
amongst legislators, especially those representing an employer perspective,
that such legislation would constitute an unnecessary interference with
management discretion in recruitment and selection. Such legislation that
does exist may even encourage age discrimination in recruitment. Under the
Employment Ordinance, employers are required to pay higher rates of longservice payment to those employees aged 45 or above when they are dismissed (Labour Department, 1997: 34), thus further discouraging employers
from employing older workers in the first place.

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In addition to legislation, there have also been developments of a voluntary nature. To cope with the challenge of equal opportunities, personnel and
human resource management specialists professional bodies have started to
advise members to consider the issue of equal employment opportunities and
to try to develop policies to reduce discriminatory practices (Hong Kong
Institute of Human Resource Management, 1995, Clauses III7, 8 and
VIII4; Hong Kong Industrial Relations Association, 1995, Clause I4).
Whilst such developments are still quite recent, a survey of job advertisements
conducted in October 1995 found that only 14 percent of advertisements
contained explicit age requirements and comparison with similar earlier
surveys suggests that this percentage has been falling (Wong, 1995). It seems
that at least some human resource managers are becoming more aware of the
importance of providing equal employment opportunities.

Age discrimination in the UK


There is evidence of persistent and widespread discrimination against older
workers in both the private and public sectors in the UK (Thompson, 1991;
Walker & Taylor, 1993). However, although the UK has well-established legislation on sex and race discrimination, and has recently passed legislation on
disability, it lags behind countries such as the USA, Canada, Spain, France, New
Zealand and Australia in having no laws prohibiting discrimination on grounds
of age. Those in favour of such legislation have argued that it is needed to highlight the problem of age discrimination and to provide redress for those
affected. Opponents, particularly employers organizations such as the Confederation of British Industry and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development, prefer voluntary self-regulation and claim that legislation would
be difficult to enforce, would do little to change attitudes about older workers
and would pose an additional administrative burden on employers.1 Some UK
employers have argued that legislation is unnecessary, since demographic and
labour market changes have obliged them to reconsider any negative attitudes
to older workers, whilst a growing number of the over 50s are in any case
taking early retirement (McKay, 1998). However, the extent to which such
early retirements are voluntary is open to question, with suggestions that
employers are targeting older employees for redundancy (Taylor & Walker,
1997), which may itself point to a need for protective legislation.
Conservative governments throughout the 1980s and 1990s were
firmly opposed to legislation to prohibit age discrimination, and several
private members bills on the issue failed to win the support of the House
of Commons. The Government also resisted European legislation on age
discrimination. In 1996, a proposal was made to include a clause on age

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discrimination and disability in a European Treaty on discrimination but


following representations from the UK and Denmark the clause was withdrawn. The election of a Labour government in May 1997 initially
appeared likely to lead to legislation but by 1998 it was favouring a voluntary approach. In the report Action on Age, produced in consultation with
the then Institute of Personnel and Development, the Confederation of
British Industry, the Trades Union Congress and Age Concern, the
Government sets out a strategy based on encouraging rather than enforcing good practice (Department for Education and Employment, 1998).
Upper age limits are to be removed from vacancies advertised through Job
Centres and the Governments New Deal, aimed to encourage the unemployed into work, contained incentives to encourage the employment of
older workers. The Labour Government did not rule out legislation and
Europe provides momentum in this direction as the EU Anti-Discrimination
Directive, agreed in 2000, includes an article paving the way for members
to introduce anti-ageism legislation by 2006.

Literature and hypotheses


Stereotypical beliefs about older workers
Tillsley (1990), drawing on her own and other researchers interview and
survey work, compiled a list of age stereotypes held by employers. Thus,
whilst older people are seen as more loyal and reliable, they are also seen
as being less flexible and motivated, with outdated skills and poor health
and fitness. These findings are corroborated in a study sponsored by the
then Institute of Personnel Management (Warr & Pennington, 1993),
involving a postal survey of 1140 UK personnel managers. Workers over
the age of 40 were seen as having more experience, being more loyal, reliable, interpersonally skilled, conscientious, confident and more effective in
their jobs, and thinking more before they act, not taking things so easy and
working better in teams. Negative stereotypes included their being less
ready to accept new technology, less adaptable to change, less able to learn
and grasp new ideas, and being less interested in training. A factor analysis revealed two underlying dimensions to personnel managers attitudes
towards people over 40: a work effectiveness factor which consisted of
the first set of positive views, and a more negative maladaptability factor.
Strong support for the existence of age-related stereotypes amongst both
workers and managers/supervisors has emerged from other studies in both
the UK (Lyon & Pollard, 1997; Metcalf & Thompson, 1990; Taylor &
Walker, 1992), and in the USA (Doering et al., 1983; Rosen & Jerdee,

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1976a), although the detailed stereotypes vary with the exact definition of
older workers used.
We would like to emphasize that our concern in this article is with
stereotypical beliefs rather than necessarily with actual job performance. In
fact, the research evidence on the relationship between age and job performance is by no means conclusive. The meta-analyses of Waldman and
Avolio (1986) and McEvoy and Cascio (1989) suggest that on average the
correlation between age and job performance is close to zero. However, there
is a great deal of variation across studies; McEvoy and Cascio (1989), for
example, find correlations ranging from +0.66 to 0.44, with evidence of a
small positive relationship between age and performance for very young
employees. More recent studies have continued to produce mixed findings
and there has also been a suggestion that any positive relationship is likely
to be non-linear, with performance eventually reaching a plateau and then
gently declining as retirement age is approached (Warr, 1994). An explanation for these mixed results, methodological difficulties aside, is that jobs
and their constituent tasks vary in the extent to which their performance is
impaired by physical ageing or enhanced by the accumulation of experience
and skill (see Warr, 1994, for an interesting typology of jobs drawn up on
this basis). What is clear is that older workers are not necessarily any less
effective than their younger counterparts. It seems unlikely that age discrimination can be largely attributed to poorer performance on the part of
older workers; the age stereotypes that we have described may be factually
inaccurate, in general. This does not, of course, deny their possible role in
underpinning the discriminatory treatment of older workers, a possibility
that we explore in this article.

National characteristics affecting age stereotypes


There has been little research on age stereotyping in Chinese societies. Debrah
(1996) argues that age discrimination in Singapore arises mainly from
employers stereotypical views on older workers (p. 815), but this proposition is not explored empirically and there is no reference to any such research
in Chinese societies. A rare Hong Kong study is a government-sponsored
survey of employer preferences on recruitment, which suggested that employers see younger workers as offering value for money, high productivity, and
the ability to deal with clients and learn new skills, whilst older workers are
felt to offer greater maturity and loyalty, and lower levels of turnover and
absence (Education and Manpower Branch, 1996: 20). There are similarities
here with Western findings, although there was no direct comparison of the
extent of such stereotypical views relative to Western societies, and the report

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made no mention of the correlates of such beliefs in Hong Kong. To our


knowledge, then, no study has yet attempted to systematically gauge the relative prevalence of age stereotypes in Chinese as opposed to Western societies.
Our aim in this study is to begin to fill this gap in the literature, by comparing Eastern and Western employees in terms of the extent to which they
exhibit the kinds of age stereotypes reported in the Western literature and
broadly replicated in the Hong Kong Governments study (Education and
Manpower Branch, 1996).
We might expect that Chinese societies would show more positive attitudes towards older workers than those in the West, in line with the view that
Chinese culture shows a high degree of deference towards age (Bond & Hwang,
1986: 215). Finkelstein et al. (1995) have recently suggested that employers
may believe that older workers cost more to employ, for example due to higher
health insurance claims. These economically based age stereotypes await
rigorous testing in the Western literature, although it is interesting that the
Hong Kong Governments study provides some evidence of such a belief. In
general, however, indirect employment costs are lower in Hong Kong than in
the UK and other Western countries, so that to the extent that stereotypes
reflect true cost differentials, we may expect Hong Kong employers to be less
prone to such beliefs. This may in turn influence the attitudes of their staff.
However, Hong Kong has seen a particularly rapid shift towards the services
sector and to jobs demanding higher levels of education and service skills, all
of which might result in higher levels of age discrimination in Hong Kong compared to the UK, since older workers in particular may be felt to lack the necessary skills. Thus, concerns have been expressed in the media and amongst
labour activists about age discrimination, especially against those older
workers who have been displaced from manufacturing and who find it difficult to get jobs in the services sector. Add to this the possibility that a collective and high power distance society such as Hong Kong may place less
emphasis than the West on individual rights (Hofstede, 1980), and it seems that
we are not in a position to make an a priori hypothesis about the extent to
which Hong Kong and UK respondents will display negative or positive age
stereotypes. Hence, we formulate the following exploratory research question:
Research question 1: How do Hong Kong employees compare with UK
employees in the extent to which they hold positive or negative beliefs
about older workers?

Organizational characteristics affecting age stereotypes


The nature of the organization in which an individual works may be expected
to influence the individuals attitudes to older workers. We consider three

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such organizational-level variables in our analysis. First, the individuals attitude towards older workers may be influenced by the nature of the industry
to which that individuals organization belongs. The argument is that discrimination may be driven by customer tastes. If customers prefer to be
served by younger workers, then those industries which involve frequent
direct contact between employees and customers are likely to be characterized by higher levels of age discrimination and by a relatively young workforce as employers respond to customer preferences. Such age discrimination
may be rationalized by managers and supervisors through the adoption of
adverse stereotypes of older workers. The outcome is that individuals
working in industries requiring greater direct contact with customers may be
socialized into a culture of stereotypical beliefs about older workers and are
less likely to have any such beliefs challenged.
Second, we may expect attitudes towards older workers to be influenced by the size of the organization in which the individual works. Thus,
Lucas (1995), in a study of the UK hotel and catering industry, found evidence of more negative age stereotypes amongst employers in small organizations than amongst those in larger organizations. She attributes this finding
to smaller organizations lack of professional personnel management expertise and to their less sophisticated management practices, including perhaps
a lower awareness of equal opportunities issues. Again, employees may be
socialized into such beliefs and are less likely than employees in larger
organizations to see stereotypes challenged.
Finally, a more specific measure of management practice is the presence
or otherwise of an equal opportunities policy with specific reference to age. The
introduction of such a policy may help to cultivate a more tolerant atmosphere
towards older workers in the organization by raising awareness and countering stereotypical beliefs.2 Anti-age discrimination policies may include a range
of measures, including raising upper age limits for training, redesigning jobs to
take into account the needs of older workers, particularly in relation to more
flexibility in work schedules and gradual retirement, matching benefit systems
to suit the specific needs of older workers, and providing career-long training
and development (Metcalf & Thompson, 1990).
Based on the above discussion, we hypothesize that organizational
characteristics will be related to respondents age stereotypes. Specifically the
following hypotheses are proposed:
Hypothesis 1a: Those who work in industries which require more frequent contact with customers (i.e. service industries as opposed to
manufacturing/ production) will have less favourable beliefs about
older workers than those working in industries where there is less customer contact.

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Hypothesis 1b: Respondents working in smaller organizations will


hold less favourable beliefs about older workers than those who work
in larger organizations.
Hypothesis 1c: Respondents working in an organization with an antiageism policy will hold more favourable beliefs about older workers
than those working in an organization that does not have such a policy.

Individual characteristics affecting age stereotypes


Several studies have examined the individual characteristics that correlate
with beliefs about older workers. In a recent study of workers in three southeastern US organizations, Hassell and Perrewe (1995) found evidence of
stereotypical beliefs, although the negative views were balanced by positive
beliefs. Taking an older worker as someone over 50, they found that the
respondents own age was positively correlated with more favourable beliefs
about older workers, a finding consistent with other research (see, for
example: Bird & Fisher, 1986; Institute of Personnel Management, 1993).
Such findings may be explained in terms of the in-group bias hypothesis,
whereby raters evaluate others in light of their similarity to them (Finkelstein
et al., 1995). Older people may thus rate older workers more favourably in
a bid to maintain a positive social identity as a member of the older in-group.
The contact hypothesis suggests that contact between members of
different groups can reduce intergroup hostility and discrimination (Brown
et al., 1986). Thus, Hassell and Perrewe (1995) suggested that the frequency
of interactions an individual has with older workers might be expected to
reduce negative beliefs, to the extent that these represent an inaccurate stereotype that can be countered by direct experience. In their study, frequency of
contact appeared to have no direct impact on beliefs, although frequency of
contact negatively moderated the relationship between age and beliefs. The
implication here is that younger respondents in particular, seeing older
workers as members of an out-group, may have their less favourable beliefs
moderated through more frequent contact with older workers.
Hassell and Perrewes (1995) study also shows a negative direct
relationship between supervisory status and beliefs, in line with earlier US
research finding supervisors to have less favourable beliefs about older
workers than other employees have (Bird & Fisher, 1986; Kirchner & Dunnette, 1954). A possible reason for this is that supervisors, often themselves
rather older than the majority of those they supervise, may seek to distinguish themselves from the older group in an attempt to maintain a positive
self image and in so doing develop negative stereotypes of older employees
generally (Hassell & Perrewe, 1995). It may be that supervisors then identify

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with a more positive supervisor in-group, rather than with older workers in
general. There is also evidence that supervisory status acts as a negative moderator in the relationship between age and beliefs: older workers tended to
have more positive beliefs, but this is less so for older supervisors (Bird &
Fisher, 1986; Hassell & Perrewe, 1995). Again, this may be due to supervisors distancing themselves from the older group, something that may be
pursued with greater urgency by older supervisors.
Based on the above discussion, we hypothesize that individual characteristics will be related to respondents age stereotypes. Specifically the
following hypotheses are proposed:
Hypothesis 2a: Respondents own age will be positively correlated with
more favourable beliefs about older workers.
Hypothesis 2b: Respondents who have more frequent contact with
older workers will have more favourable beliefs about such workers
than those who have less contact.
Hypothesis 2c: Respondents who are supervisors will have less
favourable beliefs about older workers than those who are not supervisors.
Hypothesis 2d: Frequency of contact with older workers will negatively
moderate the relationship between age and beliefs, i.e. older respondents will have more favourable beliefs, but this tendency will be weakened where there is frequent contact.
Hypothesis 2e: Supervisory status will negatively moderate the
relationship between age and beliefs, i.e. older respondents have more
favourable beliefs, but this tendency will be weaker for supervisors.
Hassell and Perrewe (1995) found no significant relationship between
gender and beliefs about older workers. Although we have no specific prior
hypotheses on the likely impact of gender on stereotypical beliefs, we include
this variable in our analysis.

Age stereotypes and biased attitudes in personnel practices


It is clear from Western research that age stereotypes are very common.
Furthermore, there is empirical support for the view that such stereotypes may
lead to discriminatory human resources (HR) decisions. In two simulation
studies, involving US undergraduates and subscribers to the Harvard Business
Review, Rosen and Jerdee (1976b, 1977) compared the responses of subjects
to a series of scenarios, designed to test the comparative treatment of older
and younger workers. They found that older workers were seen as being more
resistant to change than were younger employees, so that respondents were

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more likely to consider reassignment rather than corrective action to deal with
work behaviour problems of older workers. Respondents were also less likely
to recommend older workers for promotion to positions requiring creativity,
innovation and financial risk-taking, and were less likely to recommend them
for transfer to a physically demanding job. Subjects saw older workers as
being less motivated to update their skills; thus they were less likely to recommend them for training and were more likely to see them as untrainable
and hence to consider them suitable for dismissal.
On the basis of such findings, we expect that the age stereotypes individuals have will influence their attitudes towards the treatment of older
workers on a range of personnel decisions, such as selection for training, promotion and redundancy. We may also expect a similar impact on the willingness of employees to work with older colleagues and on their support for the
exercise of positive discrimination in selecting an older worker to work with.
Specifically, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 3: There will be a positive relationship between positive
beliefs about older workers and attitudes towards their training, promotion and retention, willingness to work with older workers and
willingness to consider positive discrimination in selection on their
behalf.
We also test the effects on discriminatory attitudes of the organizational and individual-level variables referred to earlier. In this analysis, we
anticipate similar effects to those hypothesized in the prediction of beliefs.
In addition, we are interested in finding out whether the relationship
between respondents age stereotypes and their attitudes towards discriminatory practices differs between Hong Kong and UK respondents. The argument here is that the social and regulatory framework differs between the
two locations, so that it is possible that the way in which age stereotypes
influence an individuals attitudes towards discrimination will differ
between the two locations. For example, well-established laws and/or a
social climate that strongly condemns discrimination may weaken this
relationship. Whilst we know that Hong Kong has less well-established
equal opportunities law in general, neither Hong Kong nor the UK has legislation on age discrimination and at this stage we are unsure about the relative strength of anti-age discrimination feeling in each place. Hence, rather
than specify a hypothesis, we propose the following exploratory research
question:
Research question 2: Will the relationship between respondents age
stereotypes and their discriminatory attitudes towards personnel practices be stronger amongst Hong Kong or UK respondents?

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Method
Participants
Samples were drawn from Hong Kong and the UK. A special feature of the
samples is the high proportion working in personnel management. The attitudes of such people are likely to be particularly important in shaping the
employment prospects of older people, given their involvement in selection
and other HR decisions. Their familiarity with such decisions also means that
their views may provide a good indicator of the state of HR practice.
Hong Kong sample
A total of 302 respondents who attended part-time diploma courses in
management organized by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University were
invited to participate in the survey. Of these 302 respondents, 72 percent
were females and 28 percent were males. Most of them were relatively young
(M = 31, SD = 4.0, minimum = 23, maximum = 48). Half of them had at
least 10 years working experience. These respondents mostly worked for
large organizations (i.e. more than 500 employees). The types of industries
they belonged to were quite diverse, including finance (28%); health/education/social welfare (17%); manufacturing (16%); transport/warehouse
(14%); wholesale/retailing (13%); restaurants/hotels (7%); and construction
(4%).
UK sample
Data were collected from 265 respondents in the UK, all of whom were parttime students of management at the University of Teesside. More than half
of the respondents were females (56%). Like the Hong Kong sample, these
respondents were relatively young. The mean age of the UK sample was 33,
with a standard deviation of 7.5, a minimum of 22 and a maximum of 60.
Ninety percent were diploma level students, the remainder being Masters
students. All of them had work experience, and more than half had been
working for at least 10 years. Two-thirds of the respondents worked for
organizations with more than 500 staff. The types of industries to which the
respondents belonged included health/education/social welfare (54%);
manufacturing (21%); finance (7%); construction (6%); transport/warehouse (4%); wholesale/retailing (3%); and restaurants/hotels (2%).
We cannot claim that the two samples are directly representative of the
Hong Kong and UK populations of employees or managers. Both samples
were relatively young and, having enrolled in part-time management courses,
they are a self-selecting group who may have above-average levels of career

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ambition and awareness of current management issues. This represents a


limitation in terms of the direct generalizability of our findings, although the
samples are likely to yield a conservative test for cultural differences, since
any cross-cultural convergence in attitudes is likely to be greater amongst the
young and better educated. Whilst the respondents were drawn from
amongst part-time students, all were in full-time employment and most had
considerable management and/or professional experience.
The two samples are not an exact match. The UK sample was on
average a little older (M = 33 vs 31 years old; t = 4.37, p < .000), reported
more frequent contact with older workers (2 = 73.83, p < .000; for example,
74% had daily contact compared to 46% of the Hong Kong sample), and
worked for larger organizations (2 = 22.04, p < .000; for example, 66%
worked for organizations with over 500 employees, compared to 51% for
the Hong Kong sample). The samples differed in their industry composition
(2 = 136.350, p < .000). For example, 12.8 percent of the UK sample worked
in manufacturing and production, compared with 10.7 percent in the Hong
Kong sample, and 56 percent of the UK sample working in health, education
and welfare, with only 17 percent in Hong Kong. There was no significant
difference in the proportion of respondents with supervisory status.

Procedure
Questionnaires were administered to some 27 batches of students, 12 in
Hong Kong and 15 in the UK. Before respondents completed the questionnaires, we briefly introduced the purpose of the study and answered questions raised by the respondents. They were asked not to put down their names
to ensure anonymity and were assured that their participation was on a
voluntary basis. Respondents were given as much time as they needed to
work on the questionnaires. On average, they took 15 to 25 minutes to complete the questionnaire. All returned completed questionnaires.

Variables
Dependent variables
Two sets of dependent measures were assessed: (1) age stereotypes about
older workers, and (2) discriminatory attitudes on employment practices.
The age stereotypes consisted of two dimensions: Adaptability and Work
Effectiveness, measured by six and four questionnaire items, respectively.
These and the other measures were based on items drawn from the Hassell
and Perrewe (1995) questionnaire. The two dimensions broadly reflect earlier

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UK research on age stereotypes (Warr & Pennington, 1993). To confirm the


underlying structure of the age stereotypes, a confirmatory factor analysis
was conducted to compare the proposed two-factor model with a one-factor
model of age stereotypes across the Hong Kong and the UK samples. As suggested by the five goodness-of-fit indices shown in Table 1, the two-factor
model was a better fit than was the one-factor model and the indices of the
proposed model were found to be generally acceptable. In light of the findings, two composite variables were constructed by taking the mean of the
individual items. Specific items and the reliability coefficients for both
samples are listed in Table 2.
Respondents were also asked for their attitudes on a range of discriminatory practices, as shown in Table 3. These items reflect commonly cited
examples of discriminatory treatment, including giving older workers lower
priority in terms of training and promotion opportunities, and selecting older
workers for retrenchment. One item refers to the willingness of respondents
themselves to work with older workers and the final item looks at the extent
to which respondents would be prepared to practise positive discrimination
by choosing an older worker as a colleague in preference to an equally skilled
younger candidate. A principal components analysis with varimax rotation
was conducted on the five discriminatory attitudes (i.e. promotion, retention,
willingness to work as peers, and a willingness to consider positive discrimination in selection), producing a first general factor (eigenvalue greater than
1) which accounted for only 37 percent of the total variance. The reliability
coefficient of that factor was a mere .40. Based on these findings, the five discriminatory attitudes were treated separately, each representing a different
aspect of employment practice.
Table 1 Goodness-of-fit indices of the proposed two-factor model of age stereotypes in
Hong Kong and UK samples

Hong Kong
One-factor
Two-factor
UK
One-factor
Two-factor
aThe

2

df

CFIa

GFIb

RMSEAc

124.36**
60.07*

35
34

.73
.92

.92
.96

.09
.05

208.68**
103.35**

35
34

.60
.84

.84
.93

.14
.08

comparative fit index


goodness-of-fit index
cThe root mean square error of approximation
bThe

Dependent variable scales: Age stereotypesa

SD

SD

3.09
3.41
3.27
3.00
3.15
3.09
3.86

.66
.92
.97
.93
.89
.94
.92

2.68
2.93
2.81
2.83
2.64
3.47
3.36

.67
.99
.96
.98
.94
.87
.92

3.02
3.25
2.68
2.96
3.18

.61
.96
.76
.80
.96

3.11
3.33
2.72
2.56
3.83

.54
.85
.72
.89
.88

Cronbachs alpha = .75 (Hong Kong sample), .77 (UK sample)


Work Effectiveness
Older workers are more dependable (R)
Older workers are better employees (R)
Older employees usually turn out work of higher quality (R)
Older employees are most loyal to the company (R)
Cronbachs alpha = .60 (Hong Kong sample), .65 (UK sample)
a Respondents were asked to rate all items according to a five-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree). Items considered by the authors to be
favourable to older workers were reverse scored (R), so that higher scores indicate a more positive belief or attitude towards older workers.
b The size for the UK sample ranged from 253 to 259.
c The size for the Hong Kong sample ranged from 299 to 302.

Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers

Adaptability
Older workers are not interested in learning new skills
Older workers do not want jobs with increased responsibilities
Most older workers cannot keep up with the speed of modern industry
Older workers prefer less challenging jobs than those they held when they were younger
Older workers can learn new skills as easily as other employees (R)
Older workers in our department work just as hard as anyone else (R)

Hong Kongc

Chiu et al.

UKb

04chiu (ds) 29/3/01 7:35 am Page 643

Table 2

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644

Human Relations 54(5)

Table 3

Dependent variables: Discriminatory attitudesa

Training
It is a better investment to train younger workers rather than older workers
Promotion
Older employees should 'step aside' (take a less demanding job) to give younger employees
advancement opportunities
Retention
I think younger employees should be given priority to stay if a company contracts its business
Co-working
Given a choice, I would not work with an older worker on a daily basis
Positive discrimination
If two workers had similar skills, Id pick the older worker to work with me (R)
a Respondents were asked to rate all items according to a five-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (strongly
agree) to 5 (strongly disagree). Items considered by the authors to be favourable towards older workers were
reverse-scored (shown as (R)), so that higher scores indicate a more favourable (less discriminatory) attitude
towards older workers.

Independent variables
As described in the previous section, there are three sets of independent variables: national, organizational and individual. The UK was coded as 1 and
Hong Kong as zero. There are three organizational level variables. Company
size refers to the number of employees working in the company. Two dummy
variables (1= yes; 0 = no) were constructed to indicate company size with
large meaning 500 employees or more, and medium 100 to 499 employees. Company size less than 100 employees, considered to be small, served
as the reference category.3 Variables were also included for industry type (1
= services; 0 = manufacturing/production),4 and whether the respondents
organization had a stipulated policy not to allow age discrimination (1 = has
ageism policy; 0 = does not have ageism policy). There are four individuallevel variables: female (female = 1; male = 0), age (ranging from 22 to 60),
whether or not the respondent directs or manages other staff (supervisor) (1
= yes; 0 = no) and the respondents reported frequency of contact with older
workers in their job. The latter was coded with none, representing no
contact with elderly workers, serving as the reference category; some,
defined as once a week or less (1 = yes; 0 = no); frequent, operationalized
as several times a week (1 = yes; 0 = no); and daily, defined as contact every
day (1 = yes; 0 = no). Interaction terms were constructed by multiplying age

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Chiu et al.

Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers

with the three dummy coded variables on frequency of contact, age with
supervisory status, and respondents country with the two stereotypes.

Analyses
Hypotheses were tested using two separate sets of multiple regression analyses. The first set involved regressing the two age stereotypes on the respondents country, organizational characteristics, individual characteristics and
four interaction terms (i.e. age x supervisory status and age x contact frequency). The variables were entered in four consecutive blocks. The second
set of analyses involved regressing the discriminatory attitudes at work on
country, organizational characteristics, individual characteristics, the two age
stereotypes, and two interaction terms (respondents country x Adaptability
and respondents country x Work Effectiveness). This was repeated for each
of the five discriminatory attitudes.

Results
Table 4 presents the means, standard deviations and zero-order correlations.
The correlations ranged from .39 to -33, of which 80 percent are within the
+.20s. Respondents country, the presence of an age discrimination policy,
and respondents age were found to be correlated with at least one of the age
stereotypes and with most of the discriminatory attitudes. The intercorrelations among the five discriminatory attitudes ranged from low to moderate.
Adaptability was related to all five discriminatory attitudes while Work Effectiveness was related only to one. All variables had adequate discriminant
validity and these results suggest that there should be no serious multicollinearity problems in the regression analysis.

Determinants of positive or negative age stereotypes


To assess whether respondents country, organizational and individual
characteristics influence their beliefs about older workers, the first set of multiple regression analyses was conducted by regressing the two age stereotypes
on the independent variables discussed earlier and the interaction terms. As
regards our research question on the relative prevalence of age stereotypes
across the two locations, Table 5 suggests that, compared to Hong Kong
respondents, UK respondents had a more negative view of older workers in
terms of their ability to cope with change (Adaptability), but a more positive
view of the relative Work Effectiveness of older workers. Importantly, these

645

1. Country UKb
.46
2. Mediumb
.22
.58
3. Largeb
.27
4. Age policyb
.76
5. Service indb
6. Age
31.80
.64
7. Femaleb
.79
8. Supervisorb
.10
9. Someb
.14
10. Frequentb
.59
11. Dailyb
12. Adaptability
2.87
13. WorkEffect
3.10
14. PosDiscrim
3.20
15. Retaining
3.28
16. Promoting
3.83
17. Training
2.58
18. Co-working
3.77
a

SD

.50
.42
.49
.44
.42
6.02
.48
.46
.25
.35
.49
.70
.57
.96
1.02
.94
1.07
.98

1.00
.04
.15**
.33*
.10*
.19**
.17**
.02
.25**
.21**
.04
.29**
.08
.33**
.17**
.07
.28**
.19**

1.00
.27**
.09*
.06
.02
.06
.10*
.18**
.01
.07
.01
.04
.08
.05
.02
.00
.03

Ns for descriptive statistics range from 536 to 561.


Dichotomous or categorical variable.
* p < .05, two-tailed test; ** p < .01, two-tailed test.

10

11

12

1.00
.27**
.09*
.06
.00
.00
.05
.08*
.04
.04
.06
.06
.03
.04
.03
.02

1.00
.17**
.13**
.08*
.01
.08
.11**
.00
.19**
.02
.09*
.14**
.07
.21**
.10*

1.00
.01
.11*
.07
.04
.09*
.03
.03
.06
.02
.01
.03
.09*
.04

1.00
.20**
.15**
.09*
.12**
.00
.17**
.16**
.01
.17**
.12**
.20**
.15**

1.00
.14**
.12**
.11**
.00
.00
.05
.09*
.05
.03
.07
.00

1.00
.01
.04
.06
.01
.03
.02
.09*
.02
.04
.04

1.00
.15**
.15**
.14**
.04
.08*
.04
.01
.14**
.15**

1.00
.17**
.00
.06
.10*
.06
.03
.06
.07

1.00
.08
.14**
.02
.03
.03
.01
.04

1.00
.13**
.16**
.25**
.30**
.39**
.31**

13

14

15

16

17

18

1.00
.08 1.00
.10* .10* 1.00
.03 .07 .32** 1.00
.01 .14** .33** .26** 1.00
.03 .12** .17** .24** .29** 1.00

Human Relations 54(5)

Variables

Means, standard deviations and correlations among variablesa

04chiu (ds) 29/3/01 7:35 am Page 646

646

Table 4

Results of multiple regression analysis: The effects of national, organizational and individual characteristics on age stereotypes
Adaptability

Work Effectiveness
2

3a

Country UK
Medium size (vs small)
Large size (vs small)
Have ageism policy
Service industry
Age
Female
Supervisor
Some contact (vs none)
Frequent contact (vs none)
Daily contact (vs none)
Age x supervisor
Age x some contact
Age x frequent contact
Age x daily contact
R2
Final F
df

.41**

.38**
.01
.03
.15*
.07

.36**
.01
.02
.15*
.06
.02**
.11
.01
.18
.16
.01

.09
49.90**
1,527

.10
11.40**
5,523

.12
6.64**
11,517

4b

1
.09*

.01
.04
.00
.02
.14
5.52**
15,513

.01
3.50*
1,527

Unstandardized regression coefficients of all the main effects are shown before entering the interaction variables.
Only the unstandardized regression coefficients of the interaction effects at the final step are shown.
p < .1; *p < .05; **p < .01.
b

2
.08
.10
.04
.01
.07

.01
1.31
5,523

3a

4b

.12*
.07
.02
.02
.07
.02**
.05
.06
.20*
.03

.07
3.36**
11,517

.08
.02*
.00
.00
.01
.08
3.04**
15,517

Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers

Chiu et al.

Variables

04chiu (ds) 29/3/01 7:35 am Page 647

Table 5

647

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648

Human Relations 54(5)

country differences persist even when organizational and individual characteristics are controlled for in the regression analysis.
The results in Table 5 also suggest that organizational characteristics, in
general, have little effect on stereotypical beliefs about older workers. Whether
or not the organization has a policy on ageism was the only exception here,
emerging as a positive predictor of Adaptability but not of Work Effectiveness,
providing only partial support for hypothesis 1c. The finding of no significant
relationship between the respondents industry type and organizational size on
the one hand and beliefs about older workers on the other contradicts hypotheses 1a and 1b. The older the respondent, the more favourable their beliefs
about older workers, in terms of both Adaptability and Work Effectiveness,
thus providing support for the in-group bias hypothesis 2a. Female respondents
appear to have more positive views about the Adaptability of older workers
only, although this finding was significant only at the 10 percent level. Frequency of contact with older workers appears to have no effect on the Adaptability dimension, but those who reported some contact had more positive
views of older workers Work Effectiveness than did respondents who reported
no contact. Perhaps surprisingly, those reporting frequent or daily contact
had no more positive beliefs than those reporting no contact. This suggests that
there is no simple linear relationship between contact and beliefs, providing at
best only partial support for the contact hypothesis 2b. There was no significant relationship between supervisory status and beliefs about older workers,
thus contradicting hypothesis 2c.
No significant interactions were found between respondents age and
the frequency of contact with older workers. Thus we fail to find support for
hypothesis 2d. There was, however, a significant interaction between age and
supervisory status in the case of the Work Effectiveness belief. The positive
relationship between own age and Work Effectiveness was weaker for supervisors. Supervisory status thus had a negative moderating impact on the
agebeliefs relationship in the case of Work Effectiveness but not for Adaptability, partially supporting hypothesis 2e.

Determinants of discriminatory attitudes in employment


Next, separate regression analyses were conducted, entering the two age stereotypes, organizational characteristics, individual characteristics and country,
along with two interaction terms as independent variables to predict respondents views on the five discriminatory attitudes. Table 6 shows that once the
age stereotypes are included in the analysis, country was found to relate to two
of the discriminatory attitudes, with UK respondents having more favourable
attitudes towards providing training for older workers, but being less prone to

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Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers

support the hiring of older workers in preference to equally qualified younger


workers. With the age stereotypes in the equations, no systematic relationships
were found between organizational characteristics and discriminatory attitudes, except for three marginal effects, two on training (i.e. having an ageism
policy and being in a customer-driven industry are associated with positive attitudes) and one on positive discrimination (i.e. weaker support for positive discrimination from respondents in large as opposed to small companies).
However, given the marginal nature of these latter findings, we should interpret them with caution, especially since the estimation of five separate equations increases the risk that our findings capitalize on chance.
Older respondents themselves had more favourable attitudes towards
training and retaining older workers, with only a marginally significant
relationship between age and attitudes towards promoting older workers.
Female respondents had more favourable attitudes than did males on training and retaining older workers. Frequency of contact with older workers
was positively related to attitudes to providing them with training and with
the willingness to work alongside them.
Respondents stereotypical beliefs about older workers were found to
be predictive of their discriminatory attitudes, with Adaptability emerging as
a positive predictor of all five attitudes. The more respondents perceived older
workers as being adaptable to change, the more favourable their views on
training, promoting, retaining and working with older workers, and on exercising positive discrimination in their favour. These results support hypothesis 3 in the case of Adaptability. However, the Work Effectiveness belief was
found to predict only the attitude to retention.
As regards research question 2, the majority of the country by stereotype
interaction effects were not significant. The exceptions were a positive coefficient on the country  Adaptability interaction in the case of promotion, a
marginally significant positive coefficient for country  Work Effectiveness in
the retaining older workers equation, and a positive coefficient on both interactions in the case of positive discrimination. These coefficients suggest that for
UK respondents, the relationship between positive age stereotypes and
favourable attitudes on the treatment of older workers is stronger than amongst
Hong Kong respondents.

Discussion
We explored whether Hong Kong respondents would have more adverse
stereotypical beliefs about older workers than their UK counterparts. In fact,
our results were mixed. Our Hong Kong sample saw older workers as less

649

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650

Human Relations 54(5)

Table 6 The effects of national, organizational and individual characteristics, and age
stereotypes on the five discriminatory attitudes at worka
Variables

Training
Adaptability
.60**
Work Effectiveness
.08
Medium size (vs small)
Large size (vs small)
Have ageism policy
Service industry
Age
Female
Supervisor
Some contact (vs none)
Frequent contact (vs none)
Daily contact (vs none)
Country UK
Country x Adapability
Country x Work Effectiveness
.15
R2
Final F
46.87**
df
2,531
Promotion
Adaptability
.40**
Work Effectiveness
.01
Medium size (vs small)
Large size (vs small)
Have ageism policy
Service industry
Age
Female
Supervisor
Some contact (vs none)
Frequent contact (vs none)
Daily contact (vs none)
Country UK
Country x Adapability
Country x Work Effectiveness
.09
R2
Final F
25.56**
df
2,531

4a

.56**
.07
.05
.07
.33**
.13

.50**
.05
.09
.10
.28**
.15
.02**
.26**
.03
.45**
.24
.43**

.46**
.07
.05
.10
.19
.19
.02**
.29**
.00
.40*
.15
.32**
.32**

5b

.06
.17
18.25**
6,527

.22
12.24**
12,521

.24
12.30**
13,520

.40**
.03
.12
.01
.04
.03

.38**
.02
.12
.00
.04
.03
.01
.09
.08
.64
.04
.02

.38*
.02
.12
.00
.04
.03
.02
.08
.08
.70
.05
.03
.03

.15
.24
0.72**
15,518

.24*
.09
8.85**
6,527

.10
4.77**
12,521

.10
4.40**
13,520

.00
.11
4.10**
15,518

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Chiu et al.

Table 6
Variables

Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers

continued
1

Retaining Older Workers


Adaptability
.35**
Work Effectiveness
.12
Medium size (vs small)
Large size (vs small)
Have ageism policy
Service industry
Age
Female
Supervisor
Some contact (vs none)
Frequent contact (vs none)
Daily contact (vs none)
Country UK
Country x Adapability
Country x Work Effectiveness
R2
.07
Final F
18.79**
df
2,531
Working as peers
Adaptability
.45**
Work Effectiveness
.12
Medium size (vs small)
Large size (vs small)
Have ageism policy
Service industry
Age
Female
Supervisor
Some contact (vs none)
Frequent contact (vs none)
Daily contact (vs none)
Country UK
Country x Adapability
Country x Work Effectiveness
.10
R2
Final F
30.30**
df
2,531

4a

.33**
.13
.18
.07
.22*
.01

.27**
.16*
.16
.06
.19
.02
.03**
.19*
.14
.24
.04
.18

.25**
.15*
.18
.06
.15
.00
.03**
.20*
.13
.21
.01
.13
.14

.08
7.39**
6,527

.11
5.51**
12,521

.12
5.23**
13,520

.44**
.12
.02
.12
.13
.14

.41**
.10
.04
.15
.09
.10
.01
.11
.08
.05
.25
.31**

.39**
.10
.02
.16
.04
.08
.01
.12
.10
.02
.21
.27*
.14

.11
10.93**
6,527

.14
6.78**
12,521

.14
6.44**
13,520

5b

.14
.25
.12
4.79**
15,518

.14
.17
.14
5.76**
15,518

651

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652

Human Relations 54(5)

Table 6

continued

Variables
Positive discrimination
Adaptability
Work Effectiveness
Medium size (vs small)
Large size (vs small)
Have ageism policy
Service industry
Age
Female
Supervisor
Some contact (vs none)
Frequent contact (vs none)
Daily contact (vs none)
Country UK
Country x Adapability
Country x Work Effectiveness
R2
Final F
df
a

4a

.21**
.09

.20**
.09
.07
.24*
.11
.09

.20**
.08
.06
.19
.10
.05
.01
.15
.12
.13
.05
.20

.12*
.06
.14
.19
.09
.03
.01
.09
.07
.24
.12
.02
.60**

.03
8.27**
2,531

.05
4.25**
6,527

.07
3.12**
12,521

.14
6.28**
13,520

5b

.27*
.76**
.19
7.99**
15,518

Unstandardized regression coefficients of all the main effects are shown before entering the interaction

variables.
b

Only the unstandardized regression coefficients of the interaction effects at the final step are shown.
< .1; *p < .05; **p < .01.

effective at work but, interestingly, they gave them a more positive rating than
did the UK respondents in terms of Adaptability. To the extent that the latter
finding accurately reflects the relative flexibility of older workers in the two
societies, this may be a result of Hong Kongs more flexible labour market.
Limited retirement and social security provision may mean that older workers
in Hong Kong are forced by financial circumstances to remain adaptable to
the demands of a changing labour market. In the UK, the trend towards early
retirement and the more extensive social security and pensions provision may
provide older workers with a weaker incentive to remain flexible. Our aim
here is not, of course, to decry the provision of social welfare protection for
older workers the welfare arguments are overriding here and Hong Kong
has been seen as a laggard in this respect. Rather, we simply point out the
implications for employee behaviour and for attitudes towards older workers.

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Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers

There is a suggestion that workers in Hong Kong may be more discriminatory against older workers than are UK workers. Hong Kong respondents were more likely to believe that younger workers should have priority
in terms of training opportunities. Furthermore, when asked the question In
your opinion, at what age are employees likely to begin to experience age discrimination in the region where you work?, 47 percent of UK respondents
answered not at all compared to only 10 percent of the Hong Kong sample.
Amongst the remainder who quoted a specific age in answer to this question,
the mean was 47 for the UK and only 43 for Hong Kong, suggesting that age
discrimination may become an issue at an earlier age in the latter location.
In our regression results, UK respondents showed less support for positive
discrimination in selection, but rather than reflecting negative attitudes
towards older workers this may simply represent a more sophisticated understanding of equal opportunities policy than is found amongst the Hong Kong
sample. Overall, our findings suggest that it is Hong Kong workers who are
more prone to negative age discrimination.
With regard to the other determinants of respondents beliefs about
older workers, we hypothesized several relationships on the basis of the prior
literature. As expected, we found that the respondents own age was predictive of positive attitudes towards older workers on both the Adaptability and
Work Effectiveness dimensions. It seems that closer age proximity leads to a
more favourable and perhaps more sympathetic assessment of older workers,
providing support for the in-group bias hypothesis (Finkelstein et al., 1995).
The presence of a policy on age discrimination in the respondents organization was associated with more positive beliefs on the Adaptability factor,
but no significant relationship was found for Work Effectiveness. Contrary
to our expectations, the respondents industry sector had no significant effect
on stereotypical beliefs. Similarly, organizational size and whether or not the
respondent had supervisory responsibilities appeared to have no significant
impact on beliefs. The respondents frequency of contact with older workers
had no significant effect on Adaptability. Those reporting some contact had
more favourable views on the Work Effectiveness factor than did those
reporting no contact, but those reporting more frequent (weekly or daily)
contact had no more favourable beliefs than those having no contact. This is
rather curious, implying a non-linear relationship, and at best offers only
qualified support for the contact hypothesis (Brown et al., 1986).
Contrary to our hypothesis, we found no evidence that frequency of
contact with older workers moderates the relationship between age and
stereotypical beliefs. However, we did find a negative moderating effect of
supervisory status on the relationship between age and Work Effectiveness.
This is line with our hypothesis and with prior literature (Hassell & Perrewe,

653

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Human Relations 54(5)

1995), and suggests that the positive impact of own age on beliefs is offset
in the case of supervisors. One explanation for such a finding is that the
impact of own age in fostering positive beliefs is inhibited amongst supervisors because, whilst they tend to be older than many of their subordinates,
they see themselves as valued members of the organization and wish to distance themselves from older colleagues, in effect opting out of the older ingroup, even to the extent of adopting negative stereotypes (Hassell &
Perrewe, 1995: 466).
Our results show that the extent to which respondents see older
workers as adaptable has a significant impact on their discriminatory attitudes towards older workers, in terms of decisions on training, promotion
and retention, their willingness to work alongside older workers and the
extent to which they would support positive discrimination in selecting older
work colleagues. These findings are consistent with earlier research showing
a link between negative stereotypical beliefs about older workers and an
intent to treat them less favourably than their younger colleagues (Rosen &
Jerdee, 1976b, 1977). However, the only significant relationship between the
Work Effectiveness belief and discriminatory attitudes was a positive
relationship with the willingness to retain older workers during retrenchment. Why the two belief dimensions should differ so much in terms of their
link with discriminatory attitudes is in need of explanation. One possibility
is that the Work Effectiveness dimension, as we have measured it, asks
respondents about the extent to which older workers are more effective than
their younger colleagues. A low score does not necessarily imply that that the
respondent sees older workers as less effective, simply that they are not more
effective, so that such a neutral belief would not necessarily be expected to
lead to a discriminatory attitude. There is also the possibility that the findings may simply reflect the lower internal consistency of the Work Effectiveness measure.
Our findings suggest that the relationship between stereotypical beliefs
and discriminatory work attitudes differs between Hong Kong and the UK
in the case of only a minority of the discriminatory attitudes. The clearest
finding here is that for UK respondents there is a stronger relationship
between stereotypical beliefs and the willingness to positively discriminate in
favour of an older worker.
We found that the presence of an age discrimination policy in the
workplace is associated with more favourable attitudes on the provision of
training for older workers, although this was only marginally significant.
Add to this the finding noted earlier that age discrimination policies are
associated with more positive beliefs on the Adaptability of older workers,
and it appears that such policies have a role in countering ageist beliefs and

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Age stereotypes and discrimination against older workers

discrimination in the workplace. However, in our Hong Kong sample, only


13 percent of respondents reported that they worked in an organization with
such a policy, compared to 43 percent for the UK sample.5
Unlike many others, both the UK and Hong Kong governments have
in recent years adopted an essentially voluntary approach to dealing with age
discrimination, preferring to rely on exhortation and education of employers rather than on legislation to outlaw age discrimination. Why discrimination on the ground of age is best dealt with by purely voluntary means,
whilst sex and race discrimination are tackled by legislation, is not entirely
clear, and Taylor and Walker (1997) outline the limitations of relying purely
on education of employers. Our study does not directly address the effectiveness or otherwise of legislation and voluntary approaches to combating
discrimination, but our findings do suggest that employer policies may have
an educative effect on employees. Employers should therefore be encouraged
to develop such policies and to communicate them to their workforce. The
unresolved question as far as our study is concerned is whether most employers will implement such policies in the absence of legislation.
The finding that stereotypical beliefs and discriminatory attitudes are
at least to some extent related to the frequency of contact with older workers
suggests that familiarity with older workers can reduce negative stereotypes
and discrimination. The implication here is that those employers who decide
to recruit older workers will not necessarily experience a permanently negative response from their younger staff. The very act of recruiting larger
numbers of older workers into an organization can counter discriminatory
attitudes amongst the workforce. There is a positive message here for those
employers who have traditionally recruited large numbers of younger people
into particular positions, but who, perhaps in the face of long-term shortages
and demographic trends, are considering recruiting older staff.
On the basis of our findings it is difficult to escape the conclusion that
Hong Kong employees are more prone to age discrimination than are their
UK counterparts, whilst Hong Kong employers appear to lag in terms of the
implementation of age discrimination policies. Whether these differences are
attributable to Hong Kong and the UK being at different stages in the
implementation of equal opportunities policy generally or whether there are
more enduring cultural influences at work here we cannot be sure, but the
principle of equal opportunities has only relatively recently become an issue
of active public policy and debate in Hong Kong and general awareness of
equal opportunities may yet increase.
Given the more recent development of widespread participation in
higher education in Hong Kong relative to the UK, we cannot rule out the
possibility that these findings are to some extent a reflection of the larger

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education gap between older and younger cohorts in Hong Kong. To the
extent that this is so, we may expect a convergence in Hong Kong and UK
attitudes in the longer term, as the educational level of future cohorts of
older workers rises. In the meantime, there is a need to provide educational
and training opportunities for older workers and to ensure that their disadvantages are not compounded by discrimination in access to such opportunities.
In both the UK and Hong Kong, older workers have in recent years
been disproportionately affected by industrial and organizational restructuring. In the former, early retirement has become almost the norm and is
strongly associated with organizations attempting to avoid compulsory
redundancy among young employees (Taylor & Walker, 1998). In the latter,
retirement provision is usually more limited and the restructuring has been
if anything rather more dramatic. A sharp decline in manufacturing employment since the mid-1980s, as production moves into the Chinese mainland,
has led to a marked rise in unemployment for older people in particular. A
key issue has been the limited transferability of their manufacturing-based
skills into the expanding services sector, which emphasizes customer service
and English-language skills. Government retraining schemes have made some
impact, but with unemployment rising in the Asian economies, the prospects
for older workers may deteriorate. The need for legislative action on age discrimination may become more urgent.
This article has a number of limitations. First, the nature of our sample
limits the degree to which we can generalize to Hong Kong and UK employees as a whole. Our samples were not nationally representative, although we
have argued that the nature of our samples, relatively young employees
enrolled in part-time management education courses, means that our analysis constitutes a conservative test for the existence of cultural differences in
age stereotypes. Whilst our Hong Kong and UK samples were not matched,
our use of multivariate analysis allows us some degree of control for organizational and individual variables in testing for country differences in stereotypical beliefs and discriminatory attitudes.
Second, amongst the organization-level variables, we found little
evidence of a significant impact on stereotypical beliefs and discriminatory
attitudes, the main exception being the presence of a policy on age discrimination. However, our inclusion of the size of the respondents organization
may fail to adequately reflect the true impact of organizational-level influences. We suggested that organization size is a proxy for the degree of
sophistication in personnel practices, which may be expected to influence
beliefs about older workers. It may be, however, that a more direct measurement of personnel practices, for example the extent to which there is a policy

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of promotion from within, would have yielded significant results. Furthermore, the degree of personnel sophistication may impact on beliefs to the
extent that employees are made aware of equal opportunities issues, the
implication being that employee awareness mediates the relationship between
personnel policy sophistication and employee beliefs about older workers.
Our research did not measure employee awareness of equal opportunities,
nor did we have detailed measures of personnel practices, apart from the
existence or otherwise of an equal opportunities policy. Future research might
usefully include measures of personnel practice and employee awareness of
equal opportunities and might address the mediated nature of the organizational characteristics-attitude relationship.
Third, we were concerned specifically with employee beliefs and their
implications for discriminatory attitudes. Whilst we suggested that employees beliefs and attitudes may be influenced by consumer preferences, we
made no attempt in this study to measure consumer preferences directly. We
used industry as a proxy for the effects of customer tastes in influencing
stereotypical beliefs amongst employees, but this is at best a very crude
measure and the lack of significant findings may reflect this. To the extent
that consumer preferences are an important cause of discrimination in
employment, this is a key area for future research.
Fourth, our aim was to explore the extent to which the age stereotypes
identified in the Western literature are found in an Eastern context, using
questionnaire items developed from Western research. There remains a possibility that we have failed to adequately reflect the nature of Eastern stereotypes, to the extent that these may be distinct from those found in the West.
Further research could usefully explore the content of Eastern stereotypes
and develop specifically Eastern measures.
Fifth, our analysis of discriminatory attitudes uses single-item
measures, which increases the likelihood of measurement error. Future
research needs to use reliable multi-item measures of discriminatory attitudes. Also, this analysis involves the estimation of five separate regression
equations, thus increasing the risk of capitalizing on chance, although to
reduce this risk we are cautious about making inferences on the basis of marginal (i.e. greater than 0.05 but less than 0.10) levels of significance.
Finally, our concern in this article has been with general rather than jobspecific age stereotypes. In contrast, the job stereotype hypothesis suggests
that evaluations of older workers are influenced by the nature of the job in
question. In particular, older workers doing or being considered for jobs which
are generally considered as older peoples jobs are likely to be evaluated
favourably relative to their younger counterparts, whilst they will be more
negatively evaluated when doing or being considered for stereotypical young

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peoples jobs (Cleveland & Landy, 1987). The job stereotype hypothesis thus
sees stereotyping occurring at the level of the job and of the individual. There
is considerable evidence of job stereotyping by age (Cleveland & Landy, 1987;
Gordon & Arvey, 1986; Institute of Personnel Management, 1993; Lawrence,
1988). Furthermore, Finkelstein et al. (1995) found some evidence that
younger people were rated more positively in young jobs, although older
workers were not rated more highly in old jobs and younger people were
more highly rated in age-neutral jobs. Perry et al. (1996) also found evidence
of such an asymmetric interaction between age and job type, suggesting that
the negative consequences of being in an age-incongruent job may be offset in
the case of younger people in old-type jobs due to their appearing as high
fliers when associated with an older and often more senior or prestigious
job. These issues remain unexplored in the Eastern context and this is an area
where further research would be of value.

Notes
1

4
5

Employers have often been characterized as being opposed to legislation, although


it is interesting that Taylor and Walkers (1994) UK survey found that 53 percent of
employers were in favour of legislation on age discrimination, with only 36 percent
against.
There is, of course, likely to be a correlation between organizational size and the
presence of an equal opportunities policy. The former is used by us as a proxy for
the sophistication and formalization of human resources management and management practices generally, whilst the latter relates to a specific policy initiative aimed
at combating age discrimination. We felt it was important to include both, since even
in the absence of a specific equal opportunities policy, management practice may
have an impact on discrimination and employee attitudes.
Employment size was responded to as a categorical variable. Because few respondents were in the three smaller size categories (under 20, 2049 and 5099 employees), we combined these into a single category.
Respondents categorized their organization into one of seven industry categories. We
combined these into a single services/manufacturing variable.
The relative prevalence of age discrimination policies did not surprise us, although
the figure of 43 percent of UK respondents organizations having a stipulated policy
not to allow age discrimination appears rather high. Arrowsmith and McGoldrick
(1996) reported that 63 percent of their Institute of Management respondents had
written equal opportunities policies, but that only a third of these specifically mentioned age. Our higher figure may reflect the composition of our sample, with twothirds of organizations employing over 500 people. Also, our question may have
been interpreted by respondents in terms of an understanding of implicit organizational practice.

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Warren C.K. Chiu is an Associate Professor in the Department of


Management, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is an industrial and
organizational psychologist whose current research interests include age
discrimination, women in management, stress management and enterprise reform in China.
[E-mail: mschiuw@polyu.edu.hk]
Andy W. Chan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His current research includes
organizational communication, joint consultation, age discrimination,
trade unionism development in Hong Kong and human resources
management practices in China. He has published articles in academic
journals such as British Journal of Industrial Relations and Industrial Relations.
[E-mail: msandyc@polyu.edu.hk]
Ed Snape was Professor of Human Resource Management at the University of Bradford Management Centre, UK, but has recently joined the
Department of Management at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His
current research includes projects on employee commitment to company
and union, age discrimination and performance appraisal.
[E-mail: msedward@polyu.edu.hk]
Tom Redman was Reader in Human Resource Management at the
School of Business and Management, University of Teesside, UK, but has
recently joined the University of Durham. His current research interests
focus on human resources management strategy, union commitment, age
discrimination, employee involvement, organizational downsizing and
comparative studies of performance appraisal practice. He is the Editor
of Personnel Review.
[E-mail: tom.redman@durham.ac.uk]

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