Nine-Year Changes in Work Satisfaction in Midlife – the Role of Age and Flexible Goal Adjustment

As the work force is ageing and many countries raise or abolish retirement ages, it becomes more and more important to understand how work satisfaction develops over the lifespan, particularly in midlife and older age. Although many studies report positive associations of age and work satisfaction, there are only few longitudinal studies with large samples investigating within-person change over longer time spans. To overcome these limitations, we used data from the German Ageing Survey to investigate changes in work satisfaction among n = 2,588 individuals aged 40 – 59 at four measurement occasions between 2008 and 2017. As our study was informed by life span approaches to self-regulation at work, we were also interested in the role of age and flexible goal adjustment, which is the ability to adjust one’s goals according to restrictions in the environment. Results showed that work satisfaction was characterized by stability in midlife, but workers in their 60’s experienced increases in work satisfaction. Nevertheless, these effects may partly show selection effects due to dissatisfied older workers retiring over time and / or dropping out of the survey. Flexible goal adjustment was related to higher work satisfaction, but not to changes in work satisfaction. Our results demonstrate that work satisfaction can increase in older age and that flexible goal adjustment may play a role in shaping the course of work satisfaction in midlife and older age. More research is needed to understand which coping mechanisms help aging workers to stay satisfied at work.