Reducing Older Workers’ Sickness Absence: The Moderating Role of Perceived Fairness

Although aging is often associated with higher vulnerability for illness, research has reported mixed results regarding the relationship between workers’ age and sickness absence. Drawing on social exchange theory, we propose that perceived fairness may attenuate the positive association between employee age and sickness absence. We tested our hypotheses by matching employee survey data with organizational archival data on sickness absence from a public sector organization in Lithuania (n = 458). Our findings showed that perceived fairness buffered the negative effect of age on sickness absence, which provides important implications.