Measuring Age Discrimination at Work: Spanish Adaptation and Preliminary Validation of the Nordic Age Discrimination Scale (NADS)

Negative stereotypes about older workers can result in ageism and age discrimination in the workplace. The aim of this study is to carry out an adaptation to Spanish and a preliminary validation of the Nordic Age Discrimination Scale (NADS) in a sample of Spanish workers over 55 years of age. The study involved 209 employees aged between 55 and 67 years old (155 women (74.2%) and 54 men (25.8%)) working in the health sector with different professional categories (nurses, doctors, nursing assistants, ancillaries and health technicians). The reliability index of the six dimensions of the NADS (promotion, training, development, development appraisals, wage increase and change processes) measured by Cronbach’s alpha was α = 0.83. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, with the goodness-of-fit indexes used, reflect an acceptable adjustment of the single-factor structure of the NADS. Regarding criterion and construct validity, the NADS correlated positively and negatively with the respective variables in the expected directions, except in one case. These results indicate that the Spanish version of the NADS shows adequate levels of internal consistency and criterion validity, and this instrument meets standard psychometric properties in its Spanish version.