Journal of Vocational Behavior 74 (2009) 283–294

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Journal of Vocational Behavior

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jvb

Re-examining the relationship between age and voluntary turnover

Thomas W.H. Ng a,*, Daniel C. Feldman b,1
a
School of Business and Economics, The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong
b
University of Georgia, Terry College of Business, 301 Brooks Hall, Athens, GA 30602, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In their quantitative review of the literature, Healy, Lehman, and McDaniel [Healy, M. C.,
Received 20 October 2008 Lehman, M., & McDaniel, M. A. (1995). Age and voluntary turnover: A quantitative review.
Available online 21 January 2009 Personnel Psychology, 48, 335–345] concluded that age is only weakly related to voluntary
turnover (average r = .08).
However, with the significant changes in mobility patterns among employees over the
Keywords: last two decades, the strength of the age–turnover relationship may have changed as well.
Age
In a meta-analysis of studies published between 1990 and 2008 (49 studies, N = 71,053),
Turnover
Meta-analysis
we found that the age–voluntary turnover relationship was in fact stronger ( .14) than
what Healy et al. (1995) found. In addition, moderator tests revealed that race, tenure,
and education level help explain differences in effect sizes across studies linking age to
turnover. That is, the age–turnover relationship is stronger when there are more racial
minorities in the sample ( .16), when organizational tenure is higher ( .18), and when
education level is lower ( .20). In addition, the relationship is strongest when the time-
frame for measuring turnover behavior is 1–2 years and when the research is conducted
with U.S. samples.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Over the last two decades, researchers have observed important changes in mobility patterns among employees. Managers
and manufacturing employees alike have been subject to more layoffs, downsizing, and company closings (Littler, Wiesner, &
Dunford, 2003). As a result of these changes and the intermittent periods of unemployment which accompany them,
researchers have observed that middle-aged and older workers increasingly value their job security (Igbaria, Kassicieh, &
Silver, 1999). Despite some increased legal protections for workers over age 40, middle-aged and older workers might still
face age discrimination in the outside labor market if they lose their current jobs (Weiss & Maurer, 2004).
In contrast, young adults have grown up in a very different career landscape and may be strategically better prepared for
job mobility than are older adults. For instance, researchers have found that, in their decisions to change jobs, younger adults
are more likely than older adults to consider whether the organization will allow them sufficient opportunities to develop a
wide range of job skills (Finegold, Mohrman, & Spreitzer, 2002; Rowe & Snizek, 1995). Moreover, young adults have more
difficulty identifying their career goals and trying to find a job that meets all their criteria for acceptability. As a result, they
are willing than older adults to move on to new employment opportunities (Dunegan, 1993).
While it is commonly believed that age and voluntary turnover are negatively related, the empirical research results on
this point have been equivocal. In a quantitative review of the literature,Healy, Lehman, and McDaniel (1995) observed that

* Corresponding author. Fax: +852 2549 3735.

E-mail addresses: tng@business.hku.hk (T.W.H. Ng), dfeldman@terry.uga.edu (D.C. Feldman).
1
Fax: +1 706 542 3743.

0001-8791/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2009.01.004
284 T.W.H. Ng, D.C. Feldman / Journal of Vocational Behavior 74 (2009) 283–294

the average correlation between age and voluntary turnover was .08, based upon empirical studies published between
1959 and 1993. They concluded that ‘‘age is not meaningfully related to an individual’s decision to leave an organization”
(p. 335).
There are both substantive and methodological reasons why this assessment of the literature may not be as accurate to-
day as it was at the time of that study’s publication. The career environment of the 1950s to 1980s was substantially different
from the career landscape of the 1990s and of the current decade. For instance, the acceleration of globalization and the
growth of the information technology industry have created many new job opportunities for labor market participants that
were not available decades ago (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996). Changing demographic patterns – more two-career couples,
declining birth rates in major industrial countries, higher divorce rates, and greater longevity – have also created impetus
for more mobility and longer time horizons in career planning (Brousseau, Driver, Eneroth, & Larsson, 1996; Farr, Tesluk,
& Klein, 1998). Methodologically speaking, there have been measurement artifacts in turnover research that might have dis-
torted empirical findings as well (Williams, 1990). In particular, the use of point-biserial correlations in this research area can
create ceiling effects that restrict the magnitude of relationships found.
The present study, then, advances Healy et al.’s (1995) review in four ways. First, it focuses on studies conducted over the
past two decades, the time period during which researchers have observed these major shifts in perceptions of job security
and norms about job mobility (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996; Brousseau et al., 1996; Fullerton & Wallace, 2007). Second, it exam-
ines multiple additional sample characteristics (like education) as moderators of the age–turnover relationship; these sam-
ple characteristics were not included in Healy et al.’s (1995) review. Third, in terms of research methodology, this study
corrects for measurement artifacts arising from the use of point-biserial correlations in most turnover studies. These arti-
facts, too, may have been attenuating the relationships found between age and voluntary turnover behavior. Finally, the
study highlights that the relationship between age and voluntary behavior varies depending upon the timeframe used in
measuring turnover behavior and the country in which the research is conducted.

1.1. Theoretical background

It is important to note here that the current meta-analysis focuses on voluntary job turnover (that is, volitional job
switching across organizations) rather than on voluntary retirement. Empirical research has shown that job turnover and
retirement are separate and distinct role transitions (Blau, 2000; Feldman, 1994). The ultimate goal of this study is to under-
stand the nature of the relationship between age and job mobility, and retirement may not be relevant here because it
typically signifies the end of one’s job mobility. Moreover, while age is likely to be negatively correlated with voluntary
job turnover, it is likely to be positively correlated with intentions to retire or actual retirement. For these two reasons, then,
we exclude retirement from the current meta-analysis of the age–turnover relationship.

1.1.1. Previous reviews of the age–turnover relationship

At the time of the Healy et al. (1995) meta-analysis, two narrative reviews (Mobley, Griffeth, Hand, & Meglino, 1979;
Rhodes, 1983) and one meta-analysis (Cotton & Tuttle, 1986) had been conducted previously. Healy et al. (1995) argued that
there was a need for a new meta-analysis because conclusions made by narrative reviews might be affected by sampling
errors and because the meta-analysis performed by Cotton and Tuttle (1986) had methodological flaws.
Therefore, Healy et al. collected 46 samples (N = 42,625) from studies, published between 1959 and 1993, that examined
the age–turnover relationship. They observed that, across studies, age was only weakly related to voluntary turnover (effect
size = .08). They also examined job tenure as a potential moderator in the age–turnover relationship but found limited sup-
port for that effect. The authors conclude: ‘‘. . .age alone is an insufficient predictor of voluntary turnover. In other words, age
provides little information for judging when an employee will choose to leave an organization” (p. 341).
Griffeth, Hom, and Gaertner (2000) performed a meta-analysis on a wide range of antecedents of turnover, including
chronological age. The authors report that age was related to turnover at .11 across 45 samples (N = 21,656). Furthermore,
when they focused on just the 16 studies that were published in the 1990s (N = 10,403), Griffeth et al. (2000) observed that
the correlation was only .06. These results are particularly surprising since, for the various reasons we present below, we
would expect this correlation to get larger rather than smaller over time.
The unclear and unexpected finding of these prior studies provided an additional reason for us to conduct an updated
meta-analysis. While Healy et al.’s conclusion was reasonable based on the studies available at that time, the present study
proposes that recent changes in mobility patterns between older and younger workers might be strengthening the relation-
ship between age and turnover today. Moreover, we include here another 19 studies published in the 1990s as well as an addi-
tional 30 studies published in the 2000s (total of 49). By doing so, we hope to extend Griffeth et al.’s work, reconsider its
surprising results, and explore whether the age–turnover relationship is in fact stronger today than it was two decades ago.

1.2. The relationship between age and voluntary turnover

While both Healy et al. (1995) and Griffeth et al. (2000) examined age as a predictor of turnover in their quantitative
reviews, neither considered the theoretical reasons for the relationship in depth. This study suggests that the psychosocial
changes brought about by aging – as well as major changes in the work environment – may help explain the variety of find-
ings in this research area.
 T.W.H. Ng, D.C. Feldman / Journal of Vocational Behavior 74 (2009) 283–294 285

1.2.1. Psychosocial changes accompanying aging

As individuals age, there are underlying changes in their emotional experiences, preferred social relationships, and self-
concepts. Because older workers are more likely than younger workers to experience positive emotions at work and value
familiar social relationships – but are less likely to feel confident about getting comparable jobs in the external labor market
– we propose older adults will be less likely than younger adults to turnover voluntarily.
Emotions: Researchers have found that emotional reactions tend to be more intense in early life stages than in late life
stages (Gross et al., 1997; Lawton, Kleban, Rajagopal, & Dean, 1992; Lebouvie-Vief & De Voe, 1991; Lebouvie-Vief, Hakim-
Larson, De Voe, & Schoeberlein, 1989). Further, empirical studies have shown that younger adults are less able to understand
and control their emotions than older adults are (Ackerman, 1996; Lawton et al., 1992). Similarly, Chapman and Hayslip
(2006) found that younger adults (mean age = 20) were less likely to use optimism as a strategy to regulate their emotions
than were older adults (mean age = 49).
In addition, younger adults process positive emotional information less deeply than older adults do. For example, younger
adults (below age 39) recall less positive information than negative information when compared to older adults (62 or
above) (Lockenhoff & Carstensen, 2007). Thomas and Hasher (2006) also found that, compared to young adults (18–28),
older adults (aged 60+) are more likely to cognitively strengthen positive information in memory and diminish negative
information. Compared to older workers, then, younger employees have less success in regulating their emotions and
process negative information more deeply. As a result, they are more likely to leave their jobs voluntarily when they face
adversity at work.
Social relationships: Older adults, as a group, strive for high quality interpersonal relationships (Kanfer & Ackerman, 2004;
Sorkin & Rook, 2006). Ryff (1989) has observed that both middle-aged adults (mean age = 53) and older adults (mean
age = 74) rate high quality social relationships as critical to well-being. Fung, Lai, and Ng (2001) also found that preferences
for familiar social partners and high quality social exchanges were weaker for younger adults (below age 30) than for older
adults (age 60 or above). For many older adults, having quality social relationships with spouses, family, and friends is key to
making a successful transition to old age, largely because these social relationships offer fulfillment of status and affiliation
needs (Sterns & Gray, 1999; Steverink & Lindenberg, 2006).
Young adults, as a group, also tend to have more problems with social relationships than older adults do. For example,
Birditt and colleagues found that younger subjects reacted more strongly than older subjects in tense social situations
and were less loyal to their friends in those situations (Birditt & Fingerman, 2003, 2005; Birditt, Fingerman, & Almeida,
2005). Taken all together, this evidence suggests that older workers value familiar, longer-standing relationships more dee-
ply than do younger adults and therefore will be less likely to voluntarily leave those relationships behind. Carstensen (1991)
uses a ‘‘socioemotional selectivity perspective” to explain this process. She suggests that, as people increasingly realize that
their time on earth is finite, they focus more on the enjoyment of social relationships than on utilitarian activities like acquir-
ing money.
Needs: Yet another potential reason for differential turnover rates lies with the distinctive needs of older and younger
workers. While older workers may be motivated to fulfill social needs, younger workers generally have higher motivation
to fulfill their growth needs (Ebner, Freund, & Baltes, 2006; Freund, 2006). As such, younger workers are more likely than
older colleagues to leave their jobs to pursue more challenging opportunities (Moss & Frieze, 1993). Kanfer and Ackerman
(2004) have also noted that aging can create qualitatively different constellations of motives for action. For example,
researchers observe that younger adults have a strong growth orientation toward work goals, while older workers are
strongly oriented toward maintaining the status quo and preventing any losses (Ebner et al., 2006; Kanfer & Ackerman,
2004). These changes in goal orientation also predispose older workers away from actively job searching.
Self-concepts: As individuals reach late middle age, they often have less self-efficacy about their ability to perform well
compared to when they were younger (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995). For instance, Brandstadter and Rothermund (1994)
observed that, across five age groups (30–35, 36–41, 42–47, 48–53, 54–59), the oldest group of subjects reported the lowest
level of confidence in their abilities to change their environments. In another study, Brandstadter and Renner (1990) found
that, rather than holding on to ambitious goals, older subjects are more likely than younger subjects to set their sights lower
as a means to adjusting to difficult circumstances.
Another reason why older workers may have lower self-concepts than younger workers do – and therefore have less
motivation to seek alternative employment – is age discrimination in the marketplace. While the extent of age discrimina-
tion may not be as great as it was 30 years ago (Weiss & Maurer, 2004), older workers do still face some age discrimination in
the work force. The literature on underemployment and job loss, for example, suggests that older workers, once laid off, are
less likely to find re-employment quickly and are less likely to find the quality replacement jobs their younger colleagues do
(Feldman, Leana, & Bolino, 2002, 1997). In addition, compared with younger employees, older employees (mean age = 50)
who have been laid off from comparable jobs are more likely to feel dissatisfied with their replacement jobs, particularly
in terms of pay and benefits (Mallinckrodt, 1990). For these reasons, too, we expect that older workers will be less likely than
younger workers to voluntarily seek out new jobs.

1.2.2. Changing labor market conditions

Over the last two decades, researchers have observed greater expectations of (and preference for) inter-organizational
mobility over intra-organizational stability among workers in industrialized countries (Briscoe, Hall, & DeMuth, 2006). Part
of the push for more mobility comes from the fact that young employees, in particular, see external job mobility as an
286 T.W.H. Ng, D.C. Feldman / Journal of Vocational Behavior 74 (2009) 283–294

effective way of getting higher salaries and more promotions (Cheramie, Sturman, & Walsh, 2007). At the same time, longi-
tudinal studies have shown that individuals’ commitment to their current organizations weakens, rather than strengthens,
over time (Bentein, Vandenberg, Vandenberghe, & Stinglhamber, 2005; Lance, Vandenberg, & Self, 2000). In large part, this is
due to employees’ perceptions that organizations are reneging on their implicit promises to them. For instance, Coyle-Shap-
iro and Kessler (2000) found that 89% of employees in their sample believed that employers had failed to fulfill their obli-
gations to them. Compared to members of the previous generation at the same career stage, young adults today are less
reliant on their employers to manage their careers and are more assertive in planning and directing their own (Brousseau
et al., 1996; King, 2004).
These various changes in the career environment over the last two decades may make age a more significant predictor of
employee turnover. As organizational downsizing and restructuring have become more common in recent years, younger
workers are psychologically prepared to be mobile even at organizational entry, particularly if they are not offered contin-
uous opportunities for more training (Finegold et al., 2002). For instance, Linnehan and Blau (2003) observed in a relatively
young sample (average age = 22) that more than 60% of employees turned over within a few years of initial hiring. In a
sample of R&D professionals, Chang, Choi, and Kim (2008) found that younger workers had a stronger cosmopolitan orien-
tation than older workers did and, as a result, were more likely to engage in turnover behavior. Holton and Russell (1999)
observed that, 1 year after college graduation, young alumni had already worked at an average of 1.4 organizations; that
number rose to 2.1 organizations for graduates 3 years out of school. In an environment of repeated downsizing following
a merger, Iverson and Pullman (2000) found that younger employees were more likely than older employees to resign and to
start searching for job alternatives. In contrast, older employees were more likely than younger employees to try to hold on
to their current positions and ultimately became victims of subsequent layoffs.
In addition, recent longitudinal research has shown that age is negatively related to perceived job security in both devel-
oping (Linz & Semykina, 2008) and fully developed economies (Fullerton & Wallace, 2007) and across a wide variety of per-
sonal career orientations (Igbaria et al., 1999). Furthermore, Finegold et al. (2002) found that satisfaction with job security is
more strongly related to organizational commitment (and intentions to remain) among older workers. The relationship was
strongest for employees 45 and older and was lowest for those under 30. In a similar vein, Segers, Inceoglu, Vloeberghs, Bar-
tram, and Henderickx (2008) found that older people were less likely than younger adults to be motivated by opportunities
for external job mobility.
Not surprisingly, older workers may be even more nervous about switching jobs when job security is tenuous and layoffs
and downsizings widespread (Feldman et al., 1997, 2002; Mallinckrodt, 1990). That anxiety emerges, in large part, from
accurate perceptions of the environment. For instance, in a study of over 1000 organizations, Littler et al. (2003) found that
both mid-level and senior executives (who are usually older) were more likely to be targets of organizational downsizing
than were younger managers.
Certainly, strong perceptions of job insecurity among older workers do not necessarily result in less turnover behavior.
Indeed, it can be argued that, because older workers today are more worried about job security, they may actively seek
out new jobs which promise greater employment stability. It is also possible that more favorable norms about job mobility
might raise older workers’ aspirations for better jobs and lower their pessimism about finding them. However, when we also
consider the psychosocial changes which accompany aging and the widespread perceptions of age discrimination among
older workers, we propose that older workers will be more reluctant than their younger colleagues to leave jobs voluntarily.

Research Question 1: Is age negatively related to voluntary turnover?

1.3. Moderating relationships

1.3.1. Gender and race

While older workers are less likely than younger workers to voluntarily leave their organizations in general, female and
non-Caucasian older workers may be even less inclined to do so. Because of discriminatory hiring practices, members of
these demographic groups often encounter more difficulty than those in majority groups in finding satisfactory job alterna-
tives (Ragins, 1997). These demographic factors can interact with age to make career mobility much more difficult. In one
interesting study of this phenomenon, Lincoln and Allen (2004) observed that age and gender interacted negatively to affect
the careers of actors; those who were both female and older received significantly fewer numbers of film roles.
There is considerable evidence that, when compared to males and Caucasians, both women and minorities have more
difficulty entering higher-paying occupations and are less likely to get promoted (Lyness & Thompson, 1997; Powell, Butter-
field, & Parent, 2002). In addition, because women perceive they are less likely than men to find good employment oppor-
tunities in the external labor market, they are less likely to even look (Mano-Negrin, 2003). Further, Lam and Dreher (2004)
note that men, as a group, tend to be more successful in getting large pay raises when they switch employers than women
are. Similar patterns of results emerge for older minority workers, too (Ibarra, Kilduff, & Tsai, 2005; Thomas & Higgins, 1996).
Thus, while older workers are less likely to voluntarily leave their organizations in general, older workers who are female or
racial minorities may be especially motivated to stay with their current employers because they have even greater fears of
discrimination in the labor market.
 T.W.H. Ng, D.C. Feldman / Journal of Vocational Behavior 74 (2009) 283–294 287

Research Question 2: Do gender and race moderate the negative relationship between age and voluntary turnover?

1.3.2. Organizational tenure

This study also examines whether or not organizational tenure moderates the relationship between age and turnover.
While age and organizational tenure are positively correlated, they are not identical constructs. Particularly at a time when
there is greater job mobility, organizational tenure and age will often be quite dissimilar. For example, senior executives re-
cruited in the external labor market may well be in their 50s or 60s but have tenure of less than 1 year.
Nonetheless, older workers with high organizational tenure may have particularly strong reasons to stay with their cur-
rent employers. Organizations are likely to provide handsome compensation and outstanding perks to retain and motivate
veteran employees (Hutchens, 1989). Ng and Feldman (2007) suggest that these extrinsic rewards exert strong embedding
forces on long-tenured workers and discourage them from seeking out new employment opportunities. Thus, while older
workers are less likely to leave their organizations in general, those with long tenure are especially less likely to do so be-
cause of financial incentives (i.e., the pensions, benefits, and salaries they have accumulated) and financial disincentives (i.e.,
difficulties in recouping those rewards in the limited number of years before retirement).
In addition, research on the attraction–selection–attrition model provides evidence that, over time, employees who do
not have the values or skills that match those of their organizations are more likely to voluntarily turnover or be terminated
(Schneider, Goldstein, & Smith, 1995). In a sense, then, organizational tenure is an indirect indicator of person-organization
(P-O) fit. Therefore, while older workers are generally concerned with job security and are less likely to voluntarily turnover,
long-tenured older workers may feel especially attached to current employers where they have achieved high P-O fit. Thus,
the third research question posed in this study is:

Research Question 3: Does organizational tenure moderate the negative relationship between age and voluntary
turnover?

1.3.3. Education level

Previous research suggests that individuals with greater human capital are more likely to have access to numerous job
opportunities and to jobs which provide greater financial compensation (Ng, Eby, Sorensen, & Feldman, 2005). Human cap-
ital consists of formal education, prior work experience, accumulated wisdom, and other resources that help employees per-
form their jobs at high levels or bring positive attention to the organization (Becker, 1964). Along with prior work
experience, formal education is the form of human capital most frequently investigated in this literature (Strober, 1990).
Human capital is frequently conceptualized as a short-hand signal organizations use to assess individuals’ potential con-
tributions to their firms. Formal education can also be a short-hand signal to organizations that an individual possesses the
personal attributes highly desired by organizations, such as diligence, perseverance, and self-motivation (Ceci, 1991; Swen-
son-Lepper, 2005).
Thus, while both older employees and employees with little formal education are more likely to face obstacles in finding
jobs in the outside labor market, older workers with little formal education will be especially hard-pressed to find satisfac-
tory employment in the open labor market. Therefore, we expect that older workers with higher levels of formal education
are more likely than older workers with little education to find, receive, and accept attractive outside offers.

Research Question 4: Does education level moderate the negative relationship between age and voluntary turnover?

2. Method

2.1. Literature search

The time period of interest in this study is between 1990 and 2008. The authors performed a comprehensive search for
those field studies conducted or published during that period that reported effect sizes for the relationship between age and
voluntary turnover. This search also included unpublished studies and dissertations and utilized numerous international re-
search databases, including Dissertation Abstracts International, EBSCOHost, Emerald, Factiva, JSTOR, Oxford Journals, Proquest,
PsycINFO, ScienceDirect, Sage Full-Text Collections, and several Wiley InterScience databases. In addition, the search included
studies in which relationships between age and turnover were not the main focus, but in which effect sizes for these rela-
tionships were reported. Consistent with the theoretical scope of the paper and as noted earlier, those articles that examined
retirement behaviors were not included in our search.
This search yielded a total of 57 empirical samples. Five studies were excluded because the data were collected before
1990, even though the articles were published in or after 1990. Two studies were excluded because they combined voluntary
and involuntary turnover data. Another study was excluded because it examined age and turnover at an organizational level.
Therefore, the final number of samples included in the current meta-analysis was 49 (N = 71,053). The list of these studies
appears in Further reading section. Two researchers (the first author and a research assistant) were responsible for coding
the meta-analysis, including sample characteristics and research design features. Inter-rater agreement was 97%.
288 T.W.H. Ng, D.C. Feldman / Journal of Vocational Behavior 74 (2009) 283–294

Across the 49 empirical studies, 19 were published between 1991 and 1999. Twenty (20) were published between 2000
and 2004. The remaining 10 studies were published between 2005 and 2008. Thirty-three (33) studies were conducted in the
U.S., with the remaining 16 studies conducted in other countries (e.g., Australia, Canada, the UK, Netherlands, Switzerland,
Mexico, China, Taiwan, and South Korea). On average, the turnover timeframe used across all 49 studies was 2 years. The
shortest timeframe used was one month and the longest timeframe was 10 years. The average employee turnover rate across
all 49 studies was 25% (ranged from 3% to 63%).
In terms of sample characteristics, the average age across all 49 samples was 37.1 years old, with the youngest sample aver-
aging 21.9 years of age and the oldest sample averaging 54.9 years of age. Across the 49 samples, males were 53% of the partic-
ipants and females 47% of the participants. The average organizational tenure was 6.6 years. Twenty-one (21) studies involved
respondents in blue-collar jobs (e.g., truck drivers), while 16 studies involved respondents in high-skilled, white-collar jobs (e.g.,
engineers). The remaining 12 studies surveyed respondents in a broad range of jobs which varied in terms of job complexity.

2.2. Measures of key constructs

Age: Age is a continuous variable and was operationalized as such in all empirical studies identified. This operationaliza-
tion was adopted to facilitate the comparison of the current findings with previous reviews, which also focused on chrono-
logical age (Griffeth et al., 2000; Healy et al. 1995).
In the article, we do not adopt a specific cutoff age for defining ‘‘older workers” for two reasons. First, because aging does
not start and stop at one particular point in time, there is no obvious cutoff when the effects of aging on work behavior will
stop, either (Beehr, 1986). Second, as the average age of the world’s working population continues to increase, more and
more individuals are continuing to work after traditional retirement ages. According to the International Labor Organization
(2005), 8% of the American workforce is age 60 or older. Indeed, with the largest segment of the working population now
aged 40–44, the mean of the entire working population would be considered ‘‘older workers” if the conventional (ADEA)
age-40 cutoff were used (Ng & Feldman, 2008).
Voluntary turnover: A majority of studies (39 studies) used company archival records to determine whether an employee
had voluntarily left his/her organization. The remaining 10 studies used self-report questions to measure turnover; respon-
dents were asked on follow-up surveys whether they had left their jobs voluntarily since the initial survey.
Because these studies did not indicate the proportion of subjects who immediately retired after resignation, we do not
know with certainty how much of the voluntary turnover observed was due to retirement. However, judging from the rel-
atively young mean age of respondents (37.1) and the average ages in these studies (21.9–54.9 years old), we believe most
employees who left their organizations still remained active in the labor market.

2.3. Meta-analytical procedures

Raju, Burke, Normand, and Langlois’s (1991) meta-analysis technique, which includes corrections for range restriction,
measurement error variance, and sampling error variance, was used. This technique is preferable for estimating the standard
errors for individually corrected correlations with sample-based and assumed (fixed) artifact values, A mean corrected
correlation was judged to be significant at a = .05 when its 95% confidence interval did not include the value of zero.
Correction for measurement error variance: Both age and voluntary turnover were assumed to be measured with no error.
Thus, this study did not disattenuate the observed effect sizes of age on turnover. This approach is consistent with that of
Healy et al. (1995).
Correction for ceiling effects in point-biserial correlations: However, turnover researchers have noted that, in comparing re-
sults on turnover relationships across studies, researchers need to correct for another form of artifact that is particularly
problematic for turnover studies (Williams, 1990). Because turnover is dichotomous in nature, effect sizes for the age–turn-
over relationship represent point-biserial correlations; these suffer from ceiling effects that restrict their maximum value to
0.798. In other words, when the proportion of leavers vs. stayers deviates from 50%, the observed point-biserial correlation
between a variable and turnover is likely to be attenuated. This problem is analogous to the range restriction which occurs
when a correlation is attenuated because the variance in the measurement metric is artificially reduced.
Among the various correction methods for deviation from sub-optimal turnover base rates (cf. Hunter, Schmidt, & Jackson,
1982; Kemery, Dunlap, & Griffeth, 1988; Steel, Shane, & Griffeth, 1990), Kemery et al.’s (1988) method has been found to be
the most appropriate (Griffeth et al., 2000; Williams, 1990). Therefore, this study also corrected for these ceiling effects in
point-biserial correlations between age and turnover by using Kemery et al.’s (1988) correction formula. To use this formula,
researchers need to know the percentage of employees who left; that information was gleaned from the original articles for
use in the present study.
Corrections for sampling error variance: The third artifact that this study corrected for was sampling error due to sample
size differences (Raju et al., 1991).

2.4. Testing moderation effects

In order to test for moderating effects, this study adopted a regression procedure recommended by Steel and Kammeyer-
Mueller (2002), which has been found to be more reliable and robust than other moderation testing methods. An additional
 T.W.H. Ng, D.C. Feldman / Journal of Vocational Behavior 74 (2009) 283–294 289

advantage of Steel and Kammeyer-Mueller’s (2002) method is that both categorical (e.g., gender) and continuous (e.g., orga-
nizational tenure) moderator variables can be included. These regression-based moderator tests have been used successfully
in previous research studies (e.g., Wright & Bonett, 2002).
To illustrate the specific moderator testing procedure utilized here, we use the example of race. Specifically, the propor-
tion of minorities in the sample was used as an independent variable, in a weighted least squares multiple regression, to
predict the corrected correlation coefficients for the age–turnover relationship. If the percentage of racial minorities in
the sample was a significant predictor of a relationship between age and turnover, then it would suggest that race moderated
that relationship.

3. Results

The results of the meta-analysis are presented in Table 1. Across 49 empirical studies published in the last 18 years
(N = 71,053), the overall relationship between age and voluntary turnover is .14. Thus, in response to the first research
question, we found that age was negatively related to voluntary turnover. Further, a t-test indicates that this effect size is
significantly larger (p < .01) than what Healy et al. (1995) and Griffeth et al. (2000) found in their studies ( .08 and .06,
respectively).
Next, moderating effects were examined. It is important to point out that moderator searches were conducted on only
those subsets of studies that had complete sample descriptions for the moderator variable in question.
The moderator analyses were performed in two ways. First, a regression-based moderator analysis was used to detect the
existence and direction of moderator effects. These regression results are given in Table 2. Then, the studies were divided
into subgroups of roughly equal numbers of studies in order to observe those moderating effects more clearly. These sub-
group analyses are presented in Table 1.
The second research question asked whether or not gender and race moderate the negative relationship between age and
voluntary turnover. While this study did not find support for gender as a moderator, it did find empirical support for race as a
moderator. That is, the relationship between age and turnover is stronger for racial minorities than for Caucasians. We di-
vided the studies into two subgroups of roughly equal size. Across the 10 studies whose samples included at least 25%
minority employees, the effect size for the age–turnover relationship was .16. In contrast, across the eight studies whose
samples included more than 80% Caucasian employees, the effect size was .07.
The third research question asked whether or not organizational tenure moderates the negative relationship between age
and voluntary turnover. We found some support for this moderating effect; the relationship between age and turnover was
more negative when the average organizational tenure of the sample was high. Here, too, we divided the studies into two
subgroups of roughly equal size. We found that, across the 17 studies in the high tenure group (6+ years), the effect size
was .18. In contrast, across the 14 studies in the low tenure group (less than 6 years), the effect size for the age–turnover
relationship was .09.
The fourth research question addressed the moderating role of education level in the negative relationship between age
and voluntary turnover. We found that the relationship between age and turnover was more negative when the proportion
of college-educated workers in the sample was low. The results indicated that, across the studies in the low-education group

Table 1
Meta-analytical relationships between age and voluntary turnover.

N k rc SDc (95% LCI, 95% UCI)

Overall relationship 71,053 49 .14 .08 ( .16, .12)
Moderator – race
Proportion of Caucasian 6 75% 14,846 10 .16 .04 ( .18, .14)
Proportion of Caucasian P 80% 4212 8 .07 .07 ( .12, .02)
Moderator – organizational tenure
Organizational tenure < 6 years 17,586 14 .09 .10 ( .14, .04)
Organizational tenure P 6 years 46,234 17 .18 .05 ( .20, .16)
Moderator – education level
Proportion of college-educated workers 6 65% 27,659 6 .20 .03 ( .22, .18)
Proportion of college-educated workers P 80% 3305 10 .06 .07 ( .10, .02)
Moderator – turnover timeframes
Less than 1 year 1984 10 .08 .09 ( .14, .02)
Between 1 and 2 years 13,370 24 .13 .13 ( .18, .08)
More than 2 years 27,276 12 .10 .10 ( .16, .04)
Moderator – countries of samples
U.S. samples 55,593 36 .17 .07 ( .19, .17)
Non-U.S. samples 15,460 13 .03 .11 ( .09, .03)

N = cumulative sample size; k = number of studies cumulated; rc = sample-size weighted corrected correlation; SDc = standard deviation of rc; LCI = lower
bound of confidence interval; UCI = upper bound of confidence interval.
290 T.W.H. Ng, D.C. Feldman / Journal of Vocational Behavior 74 (2009) 283–294

Table 2
Moderators of the age–turnover relationship.

Moderator k b Explained variance

Sample characteristics
Proportion of women 38 .17 .03
Proportion of racial minorities 18 .66* .43
Average organizational tenure 31 .52* .27
Proportion of college-educated workers 16 .42* .18
Research design characteristics
Length of turnover timeframe 46 .38* .14
Country of sample (0 = non-U.S., 1 = U.S.) 49 .55* .30

Note. Only relationships that involved 15 or more studies were examined. k = number of studies cumulated; b = standardized beta weight for the respective
moderator.
*
p < .05.

(proportion of college-educated individuals 65% or less), the effect size for the age–turnover relationship was .20. However,
across the studies in the high-education group (proportion of college-educated individuals 80% or above), the effect size was
only .06.

3.1. Additional analyses

In an exploratory fashion, this study also examined whether the length of the turnover timeframe (that is, the length of
time over which turnover behavior was measured) and countries of samples were potential moderators of the age–turnover
relationship, too. The rationale for studying turnover timeframe was to examine whether or not the differences in effect sizes
observed across studies were a function of the timeframes researchers used in their studies. We found that the strength of
the age–turnover relationship did, in fact, vary across turnover timeframes. Specifically, for studies that adopted a turnover
timeframe ranging from 1 to 11 months, the effect size for the age–turnover relationship was .08. Across the 13 studies that
adopted 1–2 years as the turnover timeframe, the effect size was .13. Across the 18 studies that adopted 2–10 years as the
timeframe, the effect size was .10.
The rationale for testing country of sample as a moderator was to examine whether or not the differences in effect sizes
observed across studies were a function of national differences in mobility patterns. It might be that the changes in job mobil-
ity patterns discussed earlier in the paper are only relevant to understanding job mobility in the U.S. Indeed, we found some
support for this possibility. Specifically, across the 36 studies conducted within the U.S., the effect size for the age–turnover
relationship was .17. On the other hand, across the 13 studies conducted outside of the U.S., the effect size was only .03.
Thus, it appears that workers in non-U.S. countries do not face the same labor market trends as U.S. workers do.

4. Discussion

Two major conclusions can be drawn from the current findings. First, unlike Healy et al. (1995) who concluded that age
was largely unrelated to voluntary turnover, the recent evidence presented here suggests that age is more strongly related to
turnover. While the strength of the effect size ( .14) is only moderate, it is larger than the effect sizes of many individual
difference predictor variables observed in Griffeth et al.’s (2000) comprehensive review, including cognitive ability (.02),
education (.06), training ( .08), marital status ( .05), kinship responsibilities ( .10), race ( .02), and gender ( .03). It is also
comparable in magnitude to frequently-studied attitudinal predictors of turnover, such as perceptions of distributive justice
( .11), perceptions of role overload (.12), and satisfaction with co-workers ( .13).
The second major conclusion is that the strength of the relationship between age and turnover varies substantially across
sample characteristics. The relationship is stronger when there are more racial minorities in the sample ( .16), when orga-
nizational tenure is high ( .18), and when education level is low ( .20). These results suggest that other personal charac-
teristics (e.g., race and education) and background factors (e.g., organizational tenure) should be considered along with
age in predicting voluntary turnover behavior. Therefore, in addition to further examining why age should relate to turnover,
researchers should also carefully investigate who is more likely to voluntarily leave their organizations, not only among older
workers but among younger workers as well.
The findings on the timeframe of turnover behavior are interesting because they highlight the potential tradeoffs in
researchers’ designs of turnover studies. Turnover studies adopting a relatively short timeframe (less than 1 year) may be less
costly to conduct (less waiting time for responses and lower attrition rates), but they may also constrain the variance observed
in the turnover measure and thereby attenuate the strength of the age–turnover relationship. Conversely, studies adopting a
relatively long timeframe (2 years or more) may maximize variance in turnover and may capture truer effects of intra-indi-
vidual aging, but may suffer from other problems that might lower the effect size for the age–turnover relationship. These
include losing contact with respondents who move, high rates of attrition from the study, and the emergence of unexpected
confounding factors during that designated turnover timeframe (e.g., offers of early retirement incentives). The decision on
 T.W.H. Ng, D.C. Feldman / Journal of Vocational Behavior 74 (2009) 283–294 291

the choice of turnover timeframe should take into consideration turnover frequencies norms of specific occupations and
industries as well. In general, based on the current findings, this study recommends a timeframe of 1–2 years, which pro-
duced the strongest correlation for the age–turnover relationship in the current meta-analysis.
Another productive area for future research is examining the potential choices older workers face between turnover and
retirement. While turnover is one option open to older workers who are no longer motivated by their jobs, another option
available to older workers (but not to younger workers) is retirement (Kim & Feldman, 2000; Wang, 2007). Thus, there is
some possibility that older workers who are no longer motivated by their jobs (either intrinsically or extrinsically) may
be substituting moves into retirement for moves into other jobs. Even among younger adults, there is some evidence that
some workers will temporarily leave the labor market altogether rather than search for new jobs when they turnover (Betz
& Voyten, 1997; Habermas & Bluck, 2000). Some may be returning to complete college degrees or go to graduate school;
others may be entering military service or doing volunteer work; still others may be taking time off for child care or elder
care. Therefore, we recommend that, wherever possible, researchers differentiate and measure the different kinds of exits of
younger and older employees alike. Doing so will enhance our understanding of the nature of the age–voluntary turnover
relationship further.
While meta-analyses provide a robust picture of cumulative research findings, they have some limitations, too. In the
current meta-analyses of the age–turnover relationship, two limitations in particular were noticeable. First, due to the data
contained in individual studies, proxy variables were used in the moderator search, such as the percentage of females for the
effect of gender and proportion of college-educated individuals for the effect of education level. Second, the meta-analyses
were heavily based on studies conducted in the U.S. and Europe. More detailed analyses of cross-cultural differences in how
aging affects voluntarily turnover should be addressed more fully as additional studies from a diverse set of cultures accu-
mulate. Further, as the number of studies on aging and turnover increases, the cumulated effect sizes found will become
more stable as well (Hunter & Schmidt, 1990).

5. Conclusion

Despite legislation regarding age discrimination, older workers still face some barriers to employment due to age stereo-
types (Greller & Simpson, 1999). Even older workers willing to stay with their current employers may suffer from discrim-
ination in terms of pay raises and promotional opportunities (Weiss & Maurer, 2004). At the same time, as more older
workers stay in their present positions longer, internal opportunities for younger workers to move up organizational hier-
archies will be blocked, creating perceptions of injustice and psychological contract violations on their end. Therefore,
further research on the age–turnover relationship has important consequences not only for older employees themselves,
but for their younger colleagues as well.

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Further reading

Arthaud-Day, M. L., Certo, S. T., Dalton, C. M., & Dalton, D. R. (2006). A changing of the guard: Executive and director turnover following corporate financial
restatements. Academy of Management Journal, 49, 1119–1136.
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Blau, G., Merriman, K., Tatum, D. S., & Rudmann, S. V. (2001). Antecedents and consequences of basic versus career enrichment benefit satisfaction. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 22, 669–688.
Bretz, R. D., Boudreau, J. W., & Judge, T. A. (1994). Job search behavior of employed managers. Personnel Psychology, 47, 275–301.
Buchko, A. A. (1993). The effects of employee ownership on employee attitudes: An integrated causal model and path analysis. Journal of Management
Studies, 30, 633–657.
Chang, J. Y., Choi, J. N., & Kim, M. U. (2008). Turnover of highly educated R&D professionals: The role of pre-entry cognitive style, work values, and career
orientation. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 81, 299–317.
Chen, X., Hui, C., & Sego, D. J. (1998). The role of organizational citizenship behavior in turnover: Conceptualization and preliminary tests of key hypotheses.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 922–931.
Crossley, C. D., Bennett, R. J., Jex, S. M., & Burnfield, J. L. (2007). Development of a global measure of job embeddedness and integration into a traditional
model of voluntary. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1031–1042.
De Croon, E. M., Sluiter, J. K., Blonk, R. W. B., Broersen, J. P. J., & Frings-Dresen, M. H. W. (2004). Stressful work, psychological job strain, and turnover: A 2-
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Fields, D., Dingman, M. E., Roman, P. M., & Blum, T. C. (2005). Exploring predictors of alternative job changes. Journal of Occupational and Organizational
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