It Is All in the Family: Understanding How and When Family-Work Facilitation Affects Successful Aging at Work

Successful aging at work is important for both older workers and organizations, but the mechanisms that explain the relationships between family-work interaction and successful aging at work remain unknown. In this scholarly work, we draw upon the work-home resources model to examine whether family-work facilitation can replenish personal resources, thereby ultimately contributing to older workers' successful aging at work. In Study 1, we collected three-wave data from a sample of 263 older workers (aged 45 years and above) working in 56 Chinese companies. The results indicated that family-work facilitation was indeed positively associated with psychological resilience at work, which, in turn, contributed to successful aging at work. To replicate the findings of Study 1 and to test the boundary conditions of the aforementioned relationships, Study 2 employed a three-wave online survey of 316 Chinese older workers. After controlling for alternative mechanisms of successful aging at work (i.e., person-job fit and occupational future time perspective), we found interesting moderation effects as well, indicating that the influence of family-work facilitation on psychological resilience at work was stronger for those individuals scoring higher in work centrality. Our research highlights the importance of a positive work-family interaction for older workers, which functions as a mechanism to capitalize on their resources to achieve successful aging at work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).