The Role of Employees' Age for the Relation Between Job Autonomy and Sickness Absence.

Abstract

We investigate whether job autonomy is associated with employees' sickness absence. In particular, we examine the role of employees' age for this relationship. We can make use of the representative German Study of Mental Health at Work data (n = 3099 employees) and control for relevant covariates. Applying theoretical consideration such as the Job Demand Control Model, we do find evidence for an inverse relation between employees' job autonomy and days of sickness absence. This relation is only weakly mediated by job satisfaction and particularly relevant for more senior employees. Theoretical implications are aimed at extending the existing theoretical models by individuals age and derive age-specific propositions. Managerial implications include recommendations which directly affect the individuals work content with regard to the use of our definition of job autonomy.