Psychiatry ยท Medical Literature
The influence of age on emotion-regulatory strategies, emotional work demands, and health/work outcomes: a systematic PRISMA literature review with narrative synthesis.
Abstract
An increasing age of the workforce necessitates a better understanding of age-related differences in emotions at work to inform age-inclusive workplace policies and practices. This review critically evaluates how age relates to emotion-regulatory strategies at work (emotional labour and emotion regulation), emotional work demands, and associated health and work outcomes. Following PRISMA guidelines, we systematically reviewed studies examining relationships between age, emotion-regulatory strategies, emotional work demands, and health/work outcomes. A completed PRISMA 2020 checklist is provided in the Supplementary Materials. Twenty-six studies were included and synthesized narratively. Across studies, no generalisable pattern of age-related differences emerged. While several studies reported age differences in the associations between emotion-regulatory strategies and health or work outcomes, often indicating comparatively more favourable outcomes among older workers, these findings were not consistently observed across studies, with some studies reporting reversed or null effects. Moreover, studies reporting age differences varied in what aspect these differences reflected, including variation in the frequency or type of strategies used, as well as differences in how these strategies related to outcomes across age. Similarly, associations between emotional work demands and outcomes varied by age in some studies but did not follow a uniform pattern. Overall, the evidence suggests that while age-related differences in these associations are sometimes observed, they are inconsistent, not systematically associated with advantage or disadvantage for any age group, and their underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Age did not emerge as a robust determinant of how emotion-regulatory strategies or emotional work demands relate to health and work outcomes. The findings underscore the need for more integrative, theoretically grounded, and methodologically rigorous approaches that better account for how age, emotional work demands, regulation, and outcomes are linked, while addressing key conceptual and design challenges. PROSPERO CRD42022300000, published on 10 May 2022.
Clinical relevance
Does worker age systematically influence emotion-regulatory strategies at work (emotional labour and emotion regulation), exposure to emotional work demands, and associated health or work outcomes? __SNAPSHOT__ {"studyDesign":"Systematic literature review with narrative synthesis, conducted according to PRISMA 2020 guidelines","setting":"Not reported (multi-study synthesis; no single clinical or institutional setting; occupational/workplace context implied across included studies)","sampleSize":"26 primary studies included in the narrative synthesis; total pooled participant N not reported in the abstract","population":"Working-age adults across the occupational lifespan; specific sectors, age ranges, and inclusion/exclusion criteria of individual included studies not detailed in the abstract","intervention":"Not applicable (observational review); exposure of interest is worker age as a predictor or moderator of emotion-regulatory strategies and emotional work demands","comparator":"Not applicable; age-related comparisons made within and across included observational studies","primaryOutcome":"Relationships between age, emotion-regulatory strategies (emotional labour [surface acting, deep acting] and emotion regulation), emotional work demands, and associated health and work outcomes (specific outcomes, e.g., burnout, wellbeing, job satisfaction, not individually enumerated in the abstract)","followUp":"Not reported; design of individual included studies (cross-sectional vs. longitudinal) not specified in the abstract","fundingSource":"Not reported in the abstract"}
Key findings
Across 26 included studies synthesized narratively, no generalisable pattern of age-related differences emerged in emotion-regulatory strategies, emotional work demands, or associated health and work outcomes. Several studies reported age-related differences in associations between emotion-regulatory strategies and health or work outcomes, with findings in some studies suggesting comparatively more favourable outcomes among older workers. However, these findings were not consistently observed across studies; some studies reported reversed effects (suggesting worse outcomes in older workers) and others reported null effects (no age moderation). Additionally, studies that did detect age differences varied in what dimension those differences reflected, precluding synthesis into a unified directional conclusion. No pooled effect sizes, confidence intervals, p-values, or NNT/NNH values are calculable from a narrative synthesis; none were reported in the abstract.
Practice implications
This review establishes that the evidence base does not support a consistent, generalisable pattern of age-related differences in how workers emotionally regulate, experience emotional demands at work, or in how age moderates the association between these variables and health or work outcomes. It does not establish that older workers uniformly fare better or worse than younger workers in emotionally demanding roles. Findings apply broadly to working adults employed in roles with emotional demands, but the specific occupational sectors, age ranges, and geographic contexts of the 26 included studies are not enumerated in the abstract, limiting assessment of generalisability. Key limitations of this review (e.g., risk of publication bias, heterogeneity of constructs and measurement tools across studies, and predominance of cross-sectional designs in the field) preclude causal inference. IMPORTANT CAVEAT: This summary is based solely on the author-supplied abstract; the full text was not available for review. Methodological details (search strategy scope, quality appraisal approach, specific outcomes assessed per study, age operationalisation across studies) require full-text verification before clinical or policy conclusions are drawn. __LIMITATIONS__ 1. Narrative synthesis without meta-analysis precludes quantitative pooling of effect sizes, meaning the direction and magnitude of age effects cannot be precisely estimated. 2. Heterogeneity in how 'age,' 'emotional labour,' 'emotion regulation,' and outcome variables were operationalised across studies is likely to be substantial and limits cross-study comparability. 3. The abstract does not detail whether formal risk-of-bias or quality appraisal was applied to included studies, making it impossible to assess the internal validity of the evidence base. 4. Most primary studies in this field are cross-sectional, precluding causal or longitudinal inferences about how age shapes emotional regulatory trajectories at work. 5. Sample size of 26 studies is small for a systematic review addressing a broad construct space, raising concerns about adequate coverage of the literature and publication bias. 6. Generalisability is uncertain because the occupational sectors, countries, and cultural contexts of included studies are not reported in the abstract. 7. The abstract describes a truncated text, so additional findings regarding specific aspects of age differences may not be captured here. 8. Funding source is not reported, preventing assessment of potential conflicts of interest. __BOTTOM_LINE_CATEGORY__ low_certainty __BOTTOM_LINE__ This PRISMA systematic review of 26 studies found no consistent, generalisable pattern by which worker age predicts or moderates emotion-regulatory strategies, emotional work demands, or their health and work outcomes, with studies showing variously favourable, reversed, or null age effects. The evidence is insufficient to support age-specific clinical or occupational health recommendations regarding emotional labour management. Clinicians and occupational health practitioners should approach age-tailored emotional wellness interventions with caution, recognising that contextual and individual factors likely outweigh age alone, and await higher-quality longitudinal evidence before modifying practice.