Is There a Technology Age Gap? Associations Among Age, Skills, and Employment Outcomes

Abstract

The current study used survey data collected by a top job search web site to explore the extent to which older (50-64 years), middle-aged (40-49 years), and younger (18-39 years) computer programmers reported different levels of human capital (e.g., job tenure) and specialized computer skills (e.g., number of programming languages). In addition, we explored the effect of age on annual salary and job benefits controlling for both traditional human capital factors and specialized computer skills. Although older computer programmers reported higher levels of most human capital factors, there were no differences in the ten specialized computer skills as a function of age. Results also indicated that age was negatively associated with both annual salary and job benefits levels even when human capital factors and specialized computer skills were statistically controlled. However, the variance accounted for by age was quite small.