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Introduction: Emotional labor (EL) is a common stressor in health care work and factors buffering its negative outcomes deserve more attention. More information is also needed on whether the effects of EL and its buffers are age-specific as health care workers are aging. Aim: We examined recovery from work as a stress buffer between EL and motivational outcomes, ie, job satisfaction, dedication to work, organizational citizenship behavior, aged-specifically. We also examined whether the effects of EL and recovery showed age-specific variations in relation to the outcomes. The age groups were moreover compared in key constructs. Method: The study was conducted among Finnish nurses and physicians (n= 4, 311) representing four different age groups. Cross-sectional data were collected by survey in 2014. Analyses were conducted age-specifically.

Results: The regression analyses showed that early middle-aged employees (35-44 years old) benefited more than the other age groups from good recovery if experiencing high EL in terms of higher job satisfaction, dedication to work, and organizational citizenship behavior. Particularly harmful EL was in early middle-age by explaining lower job satisfaction and dedication to work at this time of life. Good recovery predicted positively all outcomes across the age groups, thus these linkages showed no age-specific variation. Mean comparison analyses revealed that the youngest age group (18-34 years) reported the greatest EL.

Conclusions: Early middle-age seems to be a vulnerable time of life for experiencing EL as stressful. Good recovery from work constitutes one critical buffering resource for …