Getting Objective About Subjective Age : Introduction to a Special Issue

Abstract

Researchers have become increasingly interested in age-related constructs other than chronological age, which has been found to explain only small amounts of variance in many important work outcomes. In this editorial that accompanies our special issue of Work, Aging and Retirement on “the multitude of age constructs,” we seek to attain three related goals: First, we provide an overview of our editorial process. Second, we offer brief summaries of the five papers that are included in this special issue. Third, and perhaps representing our most substantive contribution here, we present answers to six “big picture” questions about subjective age to inform future scholarly work. We conclude that, although many important questions about alternative age constructs remain to be answered, the papers in this special issue represent excellent examples of novel work in this arena and suggest several opportunities for how future research could more rigorously and critically apply these constructs to the study of work, aging and retirement.