Abstract Age discrimination at work is negatively associated with older workers’ labour market attachment. High levels of social capital between colleagues (horizontal social capital) and between employees and management (vertical social capital) may prevent age discrimination. Methods: We examined the prospective association between social capital at work and perceived age discrimination among 7640 workers aged 50 years or older participating in two waves of the Danish SeniorWorkingLife cohort study. Results: Low levels of vertical (risk ratio 3.51 (95% CI: 2.66–4.62)) and horizontal (risk ratio 2.70 (95% CI: 2.04–3.56)) social capital at baseline increased the risk of reporting age discrimination in the labour market at follow-up compared to high levels of social capital. Conclusion: The study contributes knowledge that low levels of social capital is associated with increased risk of experiencing age discrimination in the labour market. The results indicate that measures to enhance the social capital in the workplace may help prevent age discrimination and thereby contribute to prolonging working lives of older workers.
Meng et al. (Tue,) studied this question.