Too old for the job? Two preregistered experiments on age bias in hiring

Adrian F. Rogne, Edvard N. Larsen, Anne Skevik Grødem and Ragni Hege Kitterød

No tva49_v1, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Faced with ongoing population ageing, many governments are aiming to prolong the careers of senior workers. In Norway this is done through diverse means, ranging from economic incentives and pension reforms to labour market policies and the support of campaigns promoting senior employment. Despite incentives and pressures to work longer, many seniors face barriers to prolonged employment and transitions in their late careers, which may undermine policy efforts. One such important obstacle is that managers may hold biased and stereotypical views concerning older workers, and discriminate against them. In this study, we assess age bias through vignette experiments conducted among 2,264 managers in 1,664 Norwegian firms and organizations. We first successfully replicate an international landmark study in the field (Lössbroek et al., 2021), confirming their finding that the average manager has biases against older job applicants, and that providing stereotype-rejecting information does not reduce this bias. We further assess the role of applicants’ gender, finding a slight advantage for younger women but substantively small gender differences in the impact of age. We also find limited heterogeneity among managers, except for more bias in industries associated with the private sector. Finally, we assess whether having more relevant work experience may compensate for seniority among job applicants. We find that older applicants with more relevant experience are preferred over older applicants with less relevant experience. However, employers on average still prefer younger applicants with less relevant experience over experienced seniors.

Date: 2026-10-19
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:tva49_v1

DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/tva49_v1

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