Illuminating gendered ageism with the WHO ageism experiences scale: a psychometric analysis and gender comparisons in a multi-country dataset

Abstract Gendered ageism has been highlighted as an important global challenge, and progress in understanding and addressing it requires measures of ageism that are reliable, valid, and comparable across genders. However, there has been little examination of the extent to which existing measurement tools for ageism are appropriate for use within and for comparing ageism across genders. We used data collected across four diverse country contexts, Moldova, Colombia, Libya, and China ( N = 1675), to examine the properties of the WHO Ageism Experiences Scale with respect to its capability for comparing ageism across genders and for illuminating selected aspects of gendered ageism — specifically, whether the scale functions equivalently across gender groups and whether men and women differ in their levels of ageism experiences and in the associations between ageism and health. Findings supported the gender measurement invariance of the scale across the reflective indicators. Results also indicated no significant differences in the levels of ageism experienced by women versus men in these contexts. However, the associations between ageism and health-related outcomes were significantly stronger for men than for women. The results supported the use of the WHO Ageism Experiences Scale across genders and highlighted a complex relationship between gender and ageism. These findings suggested that while experiences of ageism may not differ significantly between men and women, the consequences of ageism for health outcomes may vary, underlining the need for further research to better understand gendered dynamics in ageism.