Age differences in work stress, exhaustion, well-being, and related factors from an ecological perspective

The aim of this study was to examine the association of work stress, exhaustion, well-being, and related individual, organizational, and social factors, focusing especially on age differences in Taiwan. The data were from the 2015 Taiwan Social Change Survey. The participants were community-based adults, aged 18 years or older, selected via stratified multistage proportional probability sampling from the Taiwanese population. Well-being was measured by self-rated health and psychological health. Descriptive analysis, one-way analysis of variance, and linear regression analysis were used. Work stresses were related to three types of exhaustion, and exhaustion was related to well-being. Individual working style (being creative and using new methods), organizational factors (job satisfaction, work-family conflict, discrimination against women), and social factors (difficult finding a good job than older cohorts) were related to well-being. Older age was related to worse self-rated health, and age showed a reverse-U-shaped relation with psychological health. The resilience of older workers could be an opportunity for the global active aging trend, and interventions to support older workers in organizations would be beneficial.