Aging and Participation in Career Development Activities

The core purpose of this book chapter is to integrate the literatures on aging and career development. In particular, we discuss the specific processes through which aging affects employees’ participation in career development activities; that is, why people of different ages put different levels of effort into career development. Our discussion draws on a wide range of theories, including social cognition theory, life-space life-span theory, career timetable theory, social exchange theory, and socioemotional selectivity theory. Collectively, these various theoretical perspectives lead us to predict that there are multiple pathways through which aging can affect participation in career development activities. The chapter concludes with discussion of implications for management practice and future research directions.