The effect of age on the job satisfaction of construction workers

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceived age differences in job satisfaction of construction workers in South Africa, and how these differences affect job overall satisfaction of young and old workers on construction sites in South Africa.

The empirical study involved construction workers at operational levels comprising younger (age<40 years) and older (age>40 years) in the Western Cape province. A total of 300 questionnaires were sent to potential respondents chosen from construction workers within the Western Cape province. A total of 65 useable questionnaires were returned giving a response rate of 22 per cent.

Results of this paper indicate that job satisfaction differential does not exist between younger and older construction workers in South Africa. Overall the findings suggest that although both younger and older workers rank the relationship with workmates as being poor, age does not have an influence on the effects of the aspects of work, however, the differences are significant for one of the job satisfaction effects with younger workers reporting higher scores on “indifference”, whereas the younger workers rank poor recognition of abilities as the most effect in comparison to the older workers who reported suffering from a “lack of alertness” as the most ranked effect.

The relatively small sample means that the findings presented are not generalisable to the wider population of workers in the South African construction industry.

The paper offers practical suggestions to the construction industry and management in general on how to minimise the negative job effects arising from lack of job satisfaction. Contributes to the theory building efforts in the discipline of organisation behaviour.

The paper examines job satisfaction related issues in a developing economy and under‐researched area. The Herzberg's two factor theory of motivation which has hitherto been based on white‐collar and its applicability to blue‐collar workers such as construction bricklayers, general workers and site based personnel remains to be tested, more so with the African context.