Do older employees have lower adaptive problem-solving skills than younger employees?

Abstract New technologies may require that individuals quickly and flexibly adapt to new and changing circumstances. Adaptive problem solving (APS) involves engaging in cognitive and metacognitive processes to define problems, search for information, and apply solutions across diverse information environments and contexts. This set of skills is becoming increasingly important in the 21st century. In this study, we examine the relationship between employees’ age and their APS skills. We use data from the second cycle of PIAAC (i.e. PIAAC 2nd Cycle data) covering 11 European countries. The final sample consists of 31,756 employees in the following countries: the Flemish Community (Belgium), Czechia, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, and Spain. We find that the oldest age group (55 years or older) has lower APS skills than the middle-aged employees (aged 35–44) both across all countries combined and within each individual country. These results hold even after controlling for several individual characteristics beyond age. The findings therefore indicate that the oldest employees have lower APS skills than the middle‑aged employees both within each country and in the combined sample of all countries. One possible explanation may be age‑related changes in cognitive abilities, although other factors such as digital familiarity and work‑related abilities may also play a role. In the analysis, we control (among other things) for different forms of workplace flexibility: the extent to which employees can choose or change the sequence of their tasks, how they do their work, the speed or rate at which they work, and their working hours. The estimation results show that some of these forms of workplace flexibility enhance employees’ APS skills, while other such forms reduce or have no significant effects on their APS skills, depending on the country. These results suggest that employees who enjoy greater flexibility in their workplace may be more likely to develop better APS skills. This finding is particularly relevant for employers and for those interested in senior employees.