People are staying in the workforce longer with the employment rates of older adults rising considerably over the years. Particularly, the higher education sector is known to have an aging workforce where a large proportion of staff is older than 55 years. Psychological capital, which refers to an individual’s positive psychological state of development, includes four core dimensions: self-efficacy, hope, optimism and resilience. Understanding of the impact of psychological capital on wellbeing and mental health of working middle-aged to older adults is limited. This paper will present the survey outcomes on psychological capital, wellbeing and mental health of middle-aged and older university staff.

Data were collected using established Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ), Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWBS) and Positive Mental Health (PMH) tool.

The mean age of 29 survey respondents was 55.37 years (SD=4.26) with the majority being female (27; 90%) and, on average, worked at the university for 8.35 years (SD=5.92). Total mean scores for PsyCap, PWBS and PMH were 111.77 (SD=16.15); 231.37 (SD=36.15); and 31.43 (SD=4.58) respectively. PsyCap was moderately correlated with PMH (r=.546) and PWBS (r=.481) as well as PWBS subscales on positive relationships (r=.483), self-acceptance (r=.450) and environmental mastery (r=.558).

While limited by the small sample size, this study provides preliminary evidence that psychological capital can potentially positively influence well-being and mental health and that program focusing on improving psychological capital can be considered to improve well-being and mental health of middle-aged and older staff working in the higher education sector.