Flexible Schedules Across Working Lives: Age-Specific Effects on Well-Being and Work

In the midst of an aging global workforce, organizations must develop a better understanding of how work design interacts with aging to influence worker well-being. Grounded in socioemotional selectivity theory, the present study assesses how the effects of flexible schedules on sick day use, subjective health perceptions, work-to-family conflict, affective commitment, and work engagement change with age. The study uses 3,623 observations from the Linked Personnel Panel, a federally collected and maintained data set consisting of three waves from 2013-2017 in Germany. Results show that flexible schedules have age-specific effects for some outcomes and age-neutral effects for others. Flexible schedules were related to lower sick day use and higher subjective health perceptions only among older workers and reduced work-to-family conflict only among middle-aged workers. Relationships with work engagement and affective commitment were more consistently positive across age. The results point to the importance of understanding age-specific policy effects in the face of workforce aging.