DOI: 10.3886/icpsr34837
title: Age and Generations Study, 2007-2008
title: Archival Version

description: The Age and Generations Study documented employee and employer outcomes related to the experiences of multi-generational teams in five industry sectors, and examined how the work relationships of these team members might change over time. The five industry sectors included in this collection were retail, pharmaceuticals, finance, health care, and higher education. Various questions focused on the organization and on how the interactions of multi-generational work units affected outcomes for employees in the department/unit, as well as their performance and productivity outcomes. Additionally, the survey requested information on employees' perceptions of their work experience, work that is done by their work groups, opportunities for learning and development, organizational policies, and their assessments of their health and well-being. Demographic variables included gender, birth year, race/ethnicity, education, marital status, number of children, hourly wage, salary, and household income.
description: The Age and Generations Study was designed to document employee and employer outcomes related to experiences of multi-generational teams in five industry sectors and to examine how the work relationships of these team members might change over time.
description: Organizations surveyed for this collection were in one of five industry sectors and had multi-generational department/work units with a minimum of 200 employees. Interested organizations assigned an individual, typically a director or manager in Human Resources, to serve as the liaison between the Center and the organization. The liaison completed an online survey asking for information about the organization, then was asked to choose 1 or 2 departments/units in their organization that had at least 100 employees to participate in the study. The manager of the business unit or department in the organization that agreed to participate in the study was asked to complete an online survey about that specific department. Employees in the selected department(s)/unit(s) were then invited to complete a survey during company time. The data were collected twice, with a minimum of a six month interval between the two data collection periods. Please refer to the Original P.I. Documentation in the ICPSR Codebook for additional information on study design.
description: None
description: Response Rates: Please refer to the Original P.I. Documentation for information on response rates.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Due to limitations on the length of the survey, shortened versions of scales were used. These included: Judge, Erez, Bono; & Thoresen's (2003) Core Self-Evaluations Scale; the 4 week recall short Form 8 (SF-8) by Ware, Kosinski, Dewey, & Gandek (2001); Thompson, Beauvais and Lyness's (1999) work-family culture scale; Greenhaus, Parasuraman, & Wormley's (1990) Supervisory Support Scale; Mor Barak's (2005) Perception of Inclusion-Exclusion Scale; the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9, Schaufeli and Bakker, 2003); Wallace's (1997) work overload measure; Valcour's (2007) satisfaction with work-family balance; Greenhaus, Parasuraman, Wormley's (1990) career satisfaction measure; Carson and Bedeian's (1994) career commitment scale; and Mowday et al.'s (1979) Organizational commitment measure. Numerous other single items were adapted from previous surveys such as the National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW, Families and Work Institute, 2002).
description: A convenience sample was used for this collection. In total, 2,195 employees from 13 departments within 9 organizations participated in this study. For eight of the organizations, a census methodology was employed, in which all of the employees within a given department were invited to participate in the survey. One organization, however, chose to use a random sampling approach, in which a random sample of 125 employees was drawn from the overall pool of employees in each of the two participating departments/units (one department had 774 employees and the other had 708). Please refer to the Original P.I. Documentation in the ICPSR Codebook for more information on sampling.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: Age and Generations Study, 2007-2008
description: Employees of organizations in the United States that had multi-generational department/work units with a minimum of 200 employees in the following five industry sectors: retail, pharmaceuticals, finance, health care, and higher education. Smallest Geographic Unit: Business Sector
description: paper and pencil interview (PAPI); web-based surveyFor further information on the Age and Generations Study, please visit the Sloan Center on Aging and Work Web site.