An international group of researchers that includes Prof. Jean-Luc Cerdin, ESSEC Business School, explore the critical subject of career resilience in the context of a global aging workforce to debunk the stereotypes from an individual and country-specific perspective.

On Age and Resilience at Work by CoBS Editor Antonin Delobre. Related research: Age and Career Resilience Through the Lens of Life Course Theory: Examining Individual Mechanisms and Macro-Level Context Across 28 Countries, Bernadeta Goštautaitė et al, Human Resource management Journal, 08 April 2025, https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12596.

The world of work no longer offers respite: digital transitions, economic uncertainty, an ageing workforce. In this unstable landscape, career resilience is essential for professional survival. It refers to the ability to absorb shocks, bounce back and stay on track despite crises. One question remains, recurring and persistent: does age really weaken this resilience, as certain clichés would have us believe, or does it, on the contrary, provide deeper resources to cope with the turbulence of contemporary work?

Research to date has been contradictory: a decline in flexibility for some, emotional superiority and endurance for others. To break this deadlock, an international team conducted a large-scale study, analysing the responses of 6,772 employees and managers across 28 countries. Their objective was to understand the relationship between age and career resilience based on life course theory, which views individual trajectories as the product of personal characteristics, accumulated experiences and socio-economic contexts.

Their conclusion is clear: age does not affect resilience in a simple or uniform way. It simultaneously activates two opposing mechanisms, one that erodes strength and another that reinforces it, and it is the way in which each country modulates this balance that makes the difference.

The Narrow Path of Age

The first of these mechanisms is negative: with age, career optimism tends to decline. Individuals advance along a path where opportunities for advancement seem to become scarcer, where promotions become more exceptional and where signs of employability appear less favourable. Added to this are various forms of discrimination, implicit or explicit, which affect confidence in the future of one’s career.

This dynamic is by no means anecdotal. Optimism is one of the drivers of resilience, as it fuels commitment, encourages initiative and enables people to get through difficult periods with a constructive outlook. A decline in optimism therefore tends to weaken resilience, not through a lack of skills, but through a less positive outlook on the future. This first mechanism does not manifest itself with the same intensity everywhere. The researchers show that it is greatly amplified in countries with high unemployment.

In these contexts, older workers feel particularly vulnerable, anticipate greater difficulty in finding a new job in the event of redundancy, and develop a pessimistic view of their prospects for mobility or retraining. National unemployment thus acts as a psychological multiplier: it reinforces the fear of professional obsolescence and intensifies the decline in optimism associated with advancing age. Conversely, in more favourable economic environments, this effect is mitigated and does not produce the same consequences.

Age and Resilience: Purpose is the way forward

In the face of this negative dynamic, a positive mechanism unfolds in parallel: with age, people tend to develop a stronger sense of career purpose. Individuals accumulate experience, gradually clarify their values and adjust their professional choices to align them with what makes sense to them. They develop a better understanding of their contribution to the collective, perceive the usefulness of their work more clearly and find it easier to identify the environments in which they thrive.

This strengthening of meaning is a valuable resource for resilience: it gives coherence to career paths, stabilises deep motivations and makes it easier to cope with transitions, setbacks or restructuring. This positive dynamic also depends on the national context. Researchers observe that it is significantly amplified in countries with a strong educational culture, i.e. in societies that value lifelong learning, invest heavily in education and have a high level of trust in educational institutions. In these countries, individuals age in an environment that encourages skills updating, the possibility of reinventing oneself and the continuous pursuit of meaningful goals.

Career meaning is therefore more robust, and its effect on resilience is significantly enhanced. Conversely, in contexts where training is less accessible or less valued, opportunities for professional renewal are more limited, which weakens the positive dynamics associated with age. The great strength of the study is that it integrates these two mechanisms into a coherent model.

 Age is neither an advantage nor a handicap in itself. Rather, it is a balancing factor between a resource that is diminishing and a resource that is increasing. The decline in optimism and the strengthening of meaning are two simultaneous, contradictory but equally real trajectories. An individual’s resilience at a given age is therefore the result of the combination of these two forces. What varies from one country to another is not the effect of age itself, but the way in which institutions, cultural norms, public policies and economic conditions modulate this balance. The implications of these findings are numerous.

Outcomes for Shaping Career Paths and HR Policy

For individuals, understanding this dual movement allows them to better focus their efforts. An experienced worker is not doomed to declining resilience: by consolidating the elements that nourish meaning, undertaking training, surrounding themselves with supportive networks and cultivating a learning mindset, they can compensate for declining optimism and maintain high resilience.

For organisations, the study clearly shows that an age-sensitive HR policy is not only useful but necessary. Investing in the professional development of older employees, combating age bias in training and internal mobility, encouraging job crafting and creating meaningful work environments are concrete levers for strengthening collective resilience. Companies that ignore these dynamics risk losing human capital at a time when experience is becoming a strategic advantage.

Finally, for public authorities, the results confirm the decisive role of employment and education policies. Combating senior unemployment and investing in lifelong learning are not just economic or social issues: they are also levers of national resilience. Countries that combine low unemployment with a strong educational culture create the conditions for a workforce capable of bouncing back from crises, regardless of age or changes in the labour market. The study thus offers a nuanced and deeply insightful interpretation of the link between age and resilience.

It reminds us that age and resilience is never a static state, but a dynamic process involving a combination of personal history and institutional architecture. In a world where careers are becoming longer and more fragmented, this integrated understanding is becoming an indispensable tool for rethinking career paths, HR policies and public policies.

Useful links:

• Link up with Jean-Luc Cerdin on LinkedIn
• Read a related article: Inter-generational collaboration: Better together
• Discover ESSEC Business School France–Singapore–Morocco
• Apply for an MBA at ESSEC.

Learn more about the Council on Business & Society

The Council on Business & Society (CoBS), visionary in its conception and purpose, was created in 2011, and is dedicated to promoting responsible leadership and tackling issues at the crossroads of business, society, and planet including the dimensions of sustainability, diversity, social impact, social enterprise, employee wellbeing, ethical finance, ethical leadership and the place responsible business has to play in contributing to the common good.  

• Follow the CoBS on LinkedIn
• Download magazines and learning content from the CoBS website downloads page.

Member schools of the Council on Business & Society.

• ESSEC Business School, France, Singapore, Morocco
• FGV-EAESP, Brazil
• School of Management Fudan University, China
• IE Business School, Spain
• Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India
• Keio Business School, Japan
• Monash Business School, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia
• Olin Business School, USA
• Smith School of Business, Queen’s University, Canada
• Stellenbosch Business School, South Africa
• Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
• Warwick Business School, United Kingdom.