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The purpose of this empirical paper is to investigate the employers’ perception of productivity of older workers in Poland with comparison to the younger ones. The paper examines whether various factors including employee's skills and company policies play a role. The findings were compared with situation in the Netherlands, discussing the differences.

Data come from 2009 representative survey (CATI) of 1,037 Polish companies. Supervisor’ rating method was used for assessment of workers skills and productivity. Primary analysis are linear regression models with employer's assessment of productivity of older and younger workers as dependent variables.

In case of older workers, higher assessment of soft skills is the most influential factor for explaining the assessment of productivity, while hard skills play smaller, yet not minor, role. In case of younger workers the relation is reversed. Age management aiming at improvement of older workers’ job performance correlates with higher rating of their productivity.

Cross-sectional researches in the case of age-group comparison may be biased by the cohort effect.

The paper brings forth important implications for policy makers and employers who will have to deal with the challenge of an aging and shrinking workforce. They refer to lifelong learning, system of public health, age management. The most important conclusion concerns the negative influence of age-related stereotypes for the labor market situation of older workers.

The paper presents data from the first research aimed at employers’ views of older workers in Poland. The paper extends the knowledge about relation of employers’ opinions, their actions and situation of older workers.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on organizational perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of engaging older volunteers, and on how they might best capitalize on the availability of older volunteers in different countries and sectors.

The paper draws from 74 case studies of voluntary organizations carried out in eight European countries, conducted mainly between spring 2009 and autumn 2010. On‐site interviews adopting common guidelines were carried out with organizational representatives.

From the organizational perspectives, some disadvantages of engaging older volunteers are: difficulties matching older volunteers to tasks; problems relating to health and declining capacities; the need for special training efforts. Examples of perceived advantages are: considerable knowledge, skills, experience, reliability and strong commitment of older volunteers. In spite of the very different contexts, objectives and notions of “performance”, cost‐benefit assessments of older volunteers do not differ greatly from those generally held by employers about older employees. Countries differ considerably in the recognition of older volunteer potential.

Organizational policies and initiatives to capitalize on the availability of older volunteers are examined in the paper. Country and sector‐related reflections show how different and changing are the environments for volunteering. Policy makers need to recognise these when implementing active ageing policies. Voluntary organizations should raise their awareness of the need for innovation in volunteer management, especially relating to older people.

There has been much research about the experiences of older volunteers and how they benefit from the operations of civil society organizations. The perceptions of the organizations have, however, been neglected and these are explored in this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to review good practice examples which promote recruitment and retention of older workers and/or the employability of workers as they age and to examine pathways of practice.

Analysis of qualitative data, drawing on a cross‐section selection of 83 good practice case studies in labour organisations in eight European countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the UK.

The study presented good practice examples and pathways of practice for the four most frequently found dimensions in the sample (training, lifelong learning and knowledge transfer; flexible working; health protection and promotion and job design; career development and mobility management) as well as examples from small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) (construction) and the public sector (transport) adopting strategies that fall within these dimensions. These examples show that innovative solutions to the challenge of an ageing workforce have been developed with good outcomes, often combining a number of measures, e.g. mobility management, health promotion and knowledge transfer. However, there is an uneven profile of age management debates and company strategies across Europe (with countries such as Germany and the Netherlands being more advanced). There is also some evidence of a standstill or roll‐back of measures during an economic crisis.

The paper reviews organisational measures facilitating the extension of working lives, of which many are longstanding and include sectors previously underrepresented in good practice databases (SMEs, public sector).

The purpose of this paper (overview) is to provide a brief introduction to the topic of active ageing and summarise the seven studies included in this special issue. The authors also acknowledge those who were instrumental in bringing this issue to fruition.

The International Journal of Manpower's usual double‐blind review process was used to select the seven papers included in this special issue. The papers themselves all have a cross‐national perspective using data from eight European countries. These papers represent a wide variety of designs, methodologies and analytic strategies used to study active ageing in the paid labour force as well as in civil society. The papers make use of large‐scale surveys among employers and volunteers, case studies in organisations, and vital statistics.

The findings of the studies included in this special issue provide insights into the factors and mechanisms that hamper higher participation levels of older adults in paid employment and civil society, and give suggestions on how to improve their inclusion and how to deal with an ageing workforce.

Taken as a collective, the papers in this special issue help propel forward in significant ways the study of active ageing from an international and interdisciplinary perspective.

Identification of dominant approaches and applied practices in the field of diversity and diversity management (DM) in Polish companies in the context of trends on labor market. Although there is not much diversity in Poland now, it is expected that there will be more age related and ethnic diversity in future.

Semi-structured interviews with HR specialist in 50 innovative companies (medium and large companies) were conducted. A synthesis of the current achievements of Polish research in this area was also carried out.

The concept of DM is not popular yet in Polish organizations. There are mostly observed declarative activities concentrating on image-related benefits and focusing on the equal employment opportunity. Findings are consistent with the results of other authors.

The study was limited by research methodology which presented one-sided, HR managers, view of the problem. Further studies examining other perspectives are required.

Observed trends on labor market require changes in attitudes toward diversity on organizations. A major challenge is to overcome the traditional approach. Potential benefits and threats ought to be documented, legal regulations adjusted to changes on labor market developed. The regulations ought to take the growing number of immigrants and problems associated with retirement age being lowered into consideration. Further studies are required.

The assessment of the state of DM implementation in Polish organizations in the context of labor market changes and associated challenges constitutes an original character of the present study.

In response to growing concerns over the negative consequences of Internet addiction on adolescents’ mental health, coupled with conflicting results in this literature stream, this meta-analysis sought to (1) examine the association between Internet addiction and depressive symptoms in adolescents, (2) examine the moderating role of Internet freedom across countries, and (3) examine the mediating role of excessive daytime sleepiness.

In total, 52 studies were analyzed using robust variance estimation and meta-analytic structural equation modeling.

There was a significant and moderate association between Internet addiction and depressive symptoms. Furthermore, Internet freedom did not explain heterogeneity in this literature stream before and after controlling for study quality and the percentage of female participants. In support of the displacement hypothesis, this study found that Internet addiction contributes to depressive symptoms through excessive daytime sleepiness (proportion mediated = 17.48%). As the evidence suggests, excessive daytime sleepiness displaces a host of activities beneficial for maintaining mental health. The results were subjected to a battery of robustness checks and the conclusions remain unchanged.

The results underscore the negative consequences of Internet addiction in adolescents. Addressing this issue would involve interventions that promote sleep hygiene and greater offline engagement with peers to alleviate depressive symptoms.

This study utilizes robust meta-analytic techniques to provide the most comprehensive examination of the association between Internet addiction and depressive symptoms in adolescents. The implications intersect with the shared interests of social scientists, health practitioners, and policy makers.