HOW DO OCCUPATIONAL ROLE DEMANDS INFLUENCE AGE-RELATED TRAJECTORIES OF EMOTIONAL FUNCTIONING?

Prior research indicates that older in comparison to younger workers regulate their emotions at the workplace more effectively, yet, this does not seem to apply for all older workers. The question arises which factors influence age-related trajectories of emotional functioning. The goal of this study is to investigate the relationship between occupational role demands and age-related trajectories of emotional functioning. Research on cognitive aging shows that workers with cognitively demanding jobs show more positive age trajectories of cognitive functioning than workers with less cognitively demanding jobs. This study tests the idea that workers with emotionally demanding jobs (relative to emotionally less demanding jobs) will grow with their duties over the course of their lifespan and improve their emotional functioning over time. This idea is tested with longitudinal data over ten years from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study combined with information from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database.