1 Organizational factors and Absenteeism or Intent to leave: A comparison between young and old age orkers Gregor Bouville Lecturer in Management at University of Haute Bretagne Rennes 2. PhD student - CREM UMR CNRS 6211 – University of Rennes 1, IGR-IAE. Mail:gregor.bouville@wanadoo.fr Paper for the 2 nd Annual EuroMed Conference, University of Salerno, 26-28 October 2009, Salerno. Abstract Purpose The aim of this paper is to explore organizational factors which are responsible for sickness absence and intent to leave from juniors and to compare these results with those on old age workers. Design/methodology/approach The approach taken is a quantitative analysis on a total of 5239 young age workers with a multinomial logit model. Findings Compared to old age workers, some organizational factors (monotony, autonomy, skill variety, time pressure, working hours, tension with the public and thermal pollutions) have a strong impact on absenteeism and intent to leave of young age workers. Furthermore, the links between some of this organizational factors and absenteeism-intent to leave is mediated by job satisfaction and health at work. Practical implications We emphasize the strong impact of work organization, working conditions and social relations on absenteeism and intent to leave of old and young age workers. Originality/value The interest of the study is to examine the relations between a large set of organizational factors (including bullying, tension with the public, aggression from the public) and absenteeism or intent to leave after controlling for many variables (size of the organization, work sector, gender, age, tenure, work status, social and occupation group, and position) and to compare the results on young age workers with those on old age workers Keywords: Comparison between old age and young age workers, absenteeism, intent to leave, work organization, working conditions, social relations, health at work, job satisfaction 1. Introduction and literature review In the world of work, two contemporary facts emerge. The working population becomes older. At the same time, young workers newly-entered on the working market relativize the supremacy of work. It could be explained by the will of young workers of developing other areas in life (Bureau et al., 2006). To more clearly understand the organizational implications