Age Discrimination
Age discrimination refers to the unfair treatment of individuals based on their age, often in the workplace or other social settings. This can manifest as hiring, promotion, or firing decisions based on age rather than merit. Age discrimination can have negative impacts on individuals' careers and well-being, and is often addressed through anti-discrimination laws and policies.
8 Key excerpts on "Age Discrimination"
eBook - ePubAge Discrimination
Ageism in Employment and Service Provision
- Malcolm Sargeant(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...1 Age Discrimination Age Discrimination occurs when one particular age group is treated differently to another age group on the grounds of chronological age. It is possible for this different treatment to be benign, as in giving reduced admission rates for cinemas to older persons. It is also possible for it to be less favourable treatment when, for example, a person is refused medical treatment because they are deemed to be too old to benefit from it. Age Discrimination is a practical manifestation of ageism, which is about having an essentially negative image of older people. A good definition is contained in a UN report on ageing. It states that: ‘Ageism reinforces a negative image of older persons as dependent people with declines in intellect, cognitive and physical performance. Older persons are often perceived as a burden, a drain on resources, and persons in need of care’. 1 Ageism is primarily ‘an attitude of mind which may lead to Age Discrimination’. 2 The word ‘ageism’ is said to have first been used by Robert Butler MD in 1969. Butler wrote a short article 3 about the strongly negative reaction of white affluent middle class residents to a proposal for a public housing project for the ‘elderly poor’ in their district. He described ageism as: ‘Prejudice by one age group against other age groups’. Although he highlighted the issue of ageism the events that he described appeared also to be a mixture of prejudice based upon race and class. Age Discrimination has, of course, both an institutional and an individual perspective...
eBook - ePubAge Matters
Employing, Motivating and Managing Older Employees
- Keren Smedley(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Age Discrimination occurs when that prejudice is institutionalized. In employment it is an action that disadvantages an individual because of their age or on the basis of assumptions, misconceptions or stereotyping about age or ability and hinders the proper consideration of an individual’s talents, skills, potential and experience. Direct Age Discrimination occurs when an individual is treated less favourably than another, on the grounds of their age. Indirect Age Discrimination occurs when a requirement is applied to all but has a disproportionate effect on a particular group. Age Discrimination can be used to the detriment of people at any age and in any environment. Age Discrimination is the act of favouring certain age groups in the workforce and sidelining others. Throughout centuries, Age Discrimination has evolved and developed into something that affects productivity in the workplace. Many companies appear to favour younger workers. It has become a youth driven culture with assumptions that the younger the employee, the better. It is often thought that the young achieve more, are more productive and offer creative and innovative working practices. Some companies prefer to have older employees as they are by definition more experienced and perceived as harder workers. However, often these older workers are sidelined and feel mistreated. The collective cultural view is that younger workers are smarter and heading towards success. This brings with it a hunger and competitiveness that is seen to be good for business. Many assume that as a person grows older they become less willing, flexible and able; also that they become more unwell, take long absences and won’t stay for long because they retire. The perception is that all of these factors will affect their performance which will therefore have a detrimental effect on productivity. The above résumé may seem far-fetched and exaggerated to some of you but unfortunately it is far from the case...
eBook - ePub- Malcolm Sargeant(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...A report by the Equality Authority of Ireland stated: Ageism involves an interlinked combination of institutional practices, individual attitudes and relationships. Institutional practices in this context can be characterised by: • the use of upper age limits to determine provision or participation; • segregation where older people are not afforded real choices to remain within their communities; • a failure to take account of the situation, experience or aspirations of older people when making decisions, and a failure to seek to ensure benefit to them as a result of an overemphasis on youth and youth culture; and • inadequate provision casting older people as burdens or dependants. Institutional practices can shape, and be shaped by, individual attitudes based on stereotypes of older people as dependent, in decline or marginal. Some of these practices can also have a detrimental impact on an older person’s sense of self worth. 2 These are some institutional manifestations of Age Discrimination. To a degree they are based upon group stereotypes. Upper age limits are imposed for health care and for employment purposes, for example, because of assumptions that it is correct to treat older people less favourably than others, perhaps because of an idea that such people have outlived the useful part of their lives and that society should somehow allocate its resources to those that have something left to contribute. Older people may be segregated and regarded as a burden or a drain on the resources of the community. There is no attempt in these practices to differentiate one older person from another. Like all discrimination it can accept that there are exceptions to the general rule, but the general rule results in treatment relying upon an unacceptable criterion. In this case the criterion is the chronological age of the group...
eBook - ePub- Malcolm Sargeant(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Indeed, in Germany and Italy there is a greater proportion of people aged 65 plus than those aged under 20 years. This clearly has significance for the labour market and for the provision of other services such as healthcare and social care. 4.3 Attitudes to age Age Discrimination is a manifestation of ageism, which is about having an essentially negative image of older people. A UN report defined ageism as something that ‘reinforces a negative image of older persons as dependent people with declines in intellect, cognitive and physical performance… older persons are often perceived as a burden, a drain on resources, and persons in need of care’ (United Nations 2009). The word ‘ageism’ was first used by Robert Butler MD in 1969. Butler wrote a short article (1969) about the strongly negative reaction of white, affluent, middle-class residents to a proposal for a public housing project for the ‘elderly poor’ in their district. He described ageism as ‘prejudice by one age group against other age groups’. Attitudes to Age in Britain 2010/11 is a useful piece of research carried out for the Department of Work and Pensions (Sweiry and Willits 2012). Its research found that about 20% of survey respondents did not view Age Discrimination as serious whilst some 36% regarded it as very serious. Interestingly, younger age cohorts reported that Age Discrimination was more serious than older cohorts. Some 47% of those aged under 25 years said it was very serious compared with just 24% of those aged 65–79 years. The research also found that those under the age of 25 years reported as being twice as likely to be on the receiving end of Age Discrimination as those of other age groups. Generally stereotypical attitudes on the basis of age were common, with older people being reported as more friendly and having higher moral standards than the young. An example of stereotypes being associated with age can be found in the work of Judy McGregor with New Zealand employers...
eBook - ePub- Stuart Goosey(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Hart Publishing(Publisher)
...Age Discrimination can clearly undermine social equality. As Neugarten notes, age is ‘one of the bases for the ascription of status’. 40 Unequal treatment on the grounds of age can undermine the social status of particular age groups by reinforcing age-based hierarchies of social status. There are a number of examples of age-differential treatment that can undermine social equality. Mandatory retirement, for example, can lock older people out of work, and this may lead to the social exclusion and marginalisation of older people. Our society links work to social status and therefore removing people from work because of age can have the effect of assigning older people to a lower social status. As Sandra Fredman points out, ‘Departure from the labour force frequently gives the impression that individuals are no longer active contributors to society’. 41 The fact that a mandatory retirement age might promote equality of opportunity over people’s complete lives does not prevent the policy from wronging people by undermining their social status. Age Discrimination can also harm the status of young people, as some examples of age stereotyping show. For example, young people are perceived as less reliable, less committed and less motivated in their work. Young people can be discriminated against on these grounds, which can make it harder for them to be taken as seriously as older age groups. This can also have the effect of making it harder for young people to find employment and achieve promotion. Due to the unique nature of age, social marginalisation caused by age-group status is likely to be restricted to parts of the life cycle. People move into new age groups over time and therefore gain (or lose) age-based opportunities over the life course. Social equality can justify some forms of age-differential treatment. For example, positive action in favour of disadvantaged age groups can be a means to achieve social equality, rather than a breach of the principle...
eBook - ePub- Bogdan Lesnik, Bogdan Lesnik(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...5 Facing our Futures: Discrimination in Later Life Mary Marshall and Cherry Rowlings Abstract Although ageism in social work has received less attention than other forms of oppression such as sexism or racism, it exerts a powerful influence on policy and practice. This chapter examines understandings of age, ageing and old age and considers what may lie behind the separation of old age from, in particular, the rest of adulthood. Through focusing on social work with people with dementia, the authors illustrate the ways in which ignorance and negative assumptions can stultify practice. Examples are provided of positive practice which values individuality and inclusion and which seeks to establish social work practice with older people as truly ‘person-centred’. Introduction Ageism is a powerful and pervasive force in UK society. Strictly speaking, it refers to the negative discrimination, disadvantage and oppression that may be experienced by a person of any age, by virtue of nothing more than their chronology - their ‘existence in the passing of time’ (Améry 1994: 1). This chapter, however, focuses on ageism in the context of old age, which is how the term is most widely used. We chose the title deliberately, as a reminder that, providing we survive, we will all become old and therefore vulnerable to institutionalised and personal ageism, including the internalisation of ageist beliefs and assumptions. For, like all powerful oppressions, part of the strength of ageism comes from the way in which those who experience it come to believe in the ‘truths’ on which it is based. Our starting point is that we have no need to demonstrate the existence of ageism within social work in the UK. Its prevalence is well established and has been a recurring theme of social work research for over twenty years. In order better to understand what lies within this professional history, it is instructive to note what anti-ageist practice has had to struggle against...
eBook - ePubAgeism
Past, Present, and Future
- Tay McNamara, John Williamson(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Since this is a combination that new college graduates are unlikely to have had an opportunity to accrue, they are at a disadvantage relative to those already established in the labor force. On the other end of the age distribution, older workers experience parallel problems (AARP, 2014). In spite of legislation designed to protect them, about 20 percent say that they have personally experienced Age Discrimination in employment (Benz et al., 2013). Labor market statistics back up this picture of bifurcated disadvantage. Overall, the unemployed are disproportionately aged in their early 20s, but both younger workers and older workers are more likely to be unemployed for 26 weeks or longer than those in middle-age (Monge-Naranjo & Sohail, 2015). Age Discrimination in the labor market cuts both ways, while leaving the middle comparatively untouched. In this chapter, we use the term peripheral ageism to describe a pattern of ageism in which the middle-aged are the advantaged group. As shown in Figure 7.1, perceived Age Discrimination tends to be highest among younger and older workers (Snape & Redman, 2003), although it can take on different aspects depending on the age of the person and the workplace context. Prejudice and discrimination in employment can occur in day-to-day workplace interactions, in promotion and advancement decisions, in firings and layoffs, and in a host of other ways. However, many of these examples, such as the speed of a person’s promotion to different positions, are difficult to research and quantify because they require inside knowledge of each organization. Other examples, such as layoffs, occur only for some organizations and predominantly in some industries, making it difficult to draw conclusions among ageism overall...
eBook - ePubLegal Construct, Social Concept
A Macrosociological Perspective on Law
- Larry Barnett(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The rate among men 45–64 years old was 91.9% in 1950 and 82.0% in 1980. 4 The ratio of the 1980 proportion to the 1950 proportion was thus 1.69 for sex and 0.89 for age. Since a ratio of 1.00 represents no change in labor force participation, the ratio that deviates the most from unity identifies the largest shift over time. Accordingly, if the indicators accurately reflect the dimensions for which they are being used, the definition of gender experienced substantially more alteration than the definition of age, and the difference is probably responsible for much of the discrepancy in the incidence of employment discrimination believed to have been directed at each of the two attributes during the early 1980s. Factors Affecting the Social Definition of Age While social definitions were transformed less for age than for sex, change occurred in the definition of age, and the sources of the change need to be identified. New views of discrimination emerge in response to the evolution of social structure and values; behavior that is socially acceptable in one historical context may not be in another because the organization and values of society have altered. The causes of societal shifts are thus central in a macrosociological analysis of legal doctrine since they affect the types of conduct that are deemed discriminatory. Given the focus of the present chapter on Age Discrimination and the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), an effort will be made here to identify the social forces that generated pressure for change in the definition of age prior to the Act and that presumably led to the adoption of the statute. While those forces have not been systematically investigated in sociological research and cannot be listed with certainty at the present time, two factors can be suggested...
