With the Age Discrimination in Employment Act coming into force back in 1967, the notion of age discrimination has a long history. Unfortunately, it’s an issue that we still grapple with today, and whereas it’s easy to assume it’s only a problem for those in and around retirement age, a survey from Senior Living suggests it can kick in as early as our 40s.
The research, which saw over 1,100 Americans over 40 years of age quizzed about their workplace experiences, and particular any discrimination they experienced, found that biases kick in relatively early in terms of recruitment, promotions and compensation.
The study finds that around one in five workers over 40 have experienced age-related discrimination in some way at work, with this rising to 24% of those over 60 years of age. This wasn’t confined to explicit discrimination, as jokes and harassment related to age were also sadly commonplace.
“Our survey respondents who had experienced age discrimination at work reported two actions at roughly the same rate — being passed up for job opportunities (45 percent) and being overlooked for raises and promotions (43 percent),” the researchers explain. “Some notable differences emerged along generational lines with younger people (ages 40-60) being more likely to say they’d experienced unwanted jokes about their age.”
The worst performing industry appeared to be education, followed closely by the media, with many of the worst offenders appearing to be smaller businesses (of between 10 and 99 employees).
It perhaps goes without saying that ageism was particularly strongly felt as we get older, with over 70% of workers over 60 years of age believing that their age would be an impediment to getting a new job, versus one in four aged between 40 and 44.
“An AARP study released in 2020 pegged the cost of bias against older workers (for the purposes of the AARP study, an older worker was defined as someone 50 or older) at $850 billion in gross domestic product during 2018 alone,” the researchers conclude. “The organization also predicted that age discrimination against older workers could cost the U.S. economy nearly $4 trillion by 2050.”
The notion of age-related discrimination in the workplace is sadly not a new one, but the survey results provide a nice reminder that ageism doesn’t only kick in once we get towards retirement age – it’s actually something that affects us much earlier in life.
