Advances in Management and Applied Economics

Re-employment Willingness in Later Life: A Moderated Mediation Model of Employment Guidance in Taiwan

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• Abstract

   

  Amid rapid population aging, re-integrating unemployed middle-aged and elderly individuals into the labor force has become a strategic priority for Taiwan’s socioeconomic sustainability. While employment guidance measures—such as counseling and career support—are widely deployed, their psychological mechanisms and contextual contingencies remain underexplored. Grounded in social-emotional selectivity and human capital theories, this study investigates how employment counseling and guidance influence re-employment willingness through the mediating role of future career opportunities, and how this process is moderated by personal traits (e.g., self-efficacy, resilience) and the socio-economic environment. Using PLS-SEM on survey data from 409 unemployed individuals aged 45+ in Taoyuan City, we find that: (1) both counseling (B = 0.21, p < 0.001) and guidance (B = 0.44, p < 0.001) directly enhance re-employment willingness; (2) guidance powerfully shapes perceptions of future opportunities (B = 0.65, p < 0.001), though this perception alone does not significantly drive willingness; (3) personal traits not only directly boost willingness (B = 0.40, p < 0.001) but also moderate the opportunity–intention link (B = 0.27, p < 0.001), confirming that psychological resources determine whether opportunity is mobilized into action; and (4) the socio-economic environment strengthens both the guidance–opportunity (B = 0.36) and its moderated path (B = 0.18), underscoring the necessity of policy–macro alignment. The findings challenge a one-size-fits-all approach and advocate for adaptive, person-centered employment support systems.

   

  JEL classification numbers: J26, J64, I38.

  Keywords: Re-employment willingness, Employment guidance, Future career opportunities, Personal traits, Socio-economic environment.