Age Discrimination

Age Discrimination looks at how both young and old can be penalised by prejudice against their age group. Following recent changes in the law, the issue of age discrimination has come to the fore. The new legislation will extend legal oversight of age-related discrimination to the provision of facilities, goods and services, as well as employment. Professor Sargeant provides a thorough review of the consequences of these changes and their implications for businesses and service providers, public or private. This comprehensive new book, like its predecessor Age Discrimination in Employment, is essential to practitioners responsible for HR issues, finance, operations, service delivery, quality and customer relations, and for those with a policy focus or academic interest in diversity issues.

For US baby boomers morphing into older employees, an attorney draws on many years of experience in employment discrimination for a timely review of age-related stereotypes, discriminatory workplace practices, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, recommendations for ADEA changes, and recourse options. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

This volume of essays is concerned with the discrimination against older people that results from a failure to recognise their diversity. By considering the unique combinations of discrimination that arise from the interrelationship of age and gender, pensions, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socio-economic class and disability, the contributors demonstrate that the discrimination suffered is multiple in nature. It is the combination of these characteristics that leads to the need for more complex ways of tackling age discrimination.

Author, activist, and TED speaker Ashton Applewhite has written a rousing manifesto calling for an end to discrimination and prejudice on the basis of age. In our youth obsessed culture, we’re bombarded by media images and messages about the despairs and declines of our later years. Beauty and pharmaceutical companies work overtime to convince people to purchase products that will retain their youthful appearance and vitality. Wrinkles are embarrassing. Gray hair should be colored and bald heads covered with implants. Older minds and bodies are too frail to keep up with the pace of the modern working world and olders should just step aside for the new generation. Ashton Applewhite once held these beliefs too until she realized where this prejudice comes from and the damage it does. Lively, funny, and deeply researched, This Chair Rocks traces her journey from apprehensive boomer to pro-aging radical, and in the process debunks myth after myth about late life. Explaining the roots of ageism in history and how it divides and debases, Applewhite examines how ageist stereotypes cripple the way our brains and bodies function, looks at ageism in the workplace and the bedroom, exposes the cost of the all-American myth of independence, critiques the portrayal of elders as burdens to society, describes what an all-age-friendly world would look like, and offers a rousing call to action. It’s time to create a world of age equality by making discrimination on the basis of age as unacceptable as any other kind of bias. Whether you’re older or hoping to get there, this book will shake you by the shoulders, cheer you up, make you mad, and change the way you see the rest of your life. Age pride! “Wow. This book totally rocks. It arrived on a day when I was in deep confusion and sadness about my age. Everything about it, from my invisibility to my neck. Within four or five wise, passionate pages, I had found insight, illumination, and inspiration. I never use the word empower, but this book has empowered me.” —Anne Lamott, New York Times bestselling author

In 1907, the editor of The New York Times wrote, "Employers, naturally, look to the young. A man or woman of advanced years is too apt to be given to old-fashioned ways of doing things, and open to suspicion of having the unforgivable fault, in modern business, of slowness." Age discrimination has existed throughout the 20th century, sometimes in the public eye and sometimes not. This book examines the problem as it relates to the employment sector in the United States throughout the century: how the issue has been treated by the media, what is the extent of age bias, how older workers were viewed, the reasons and rationales presented by business enterprises for their refusal to hire older workers, and the responses of governments to the problem. Some foreign data are used for comparison purposes; age bias exists in all industrial societies, regardless of the type of government a country provides for itself.

Age discrimination is a highly topical issue in all industrialised societies, against a background of concerns about shortening working lives and ageing populations in the future. Based upon detailed research, and adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this unique study traces the history of the age discrimination debate in Britain and the USA since the 1930s. It critically analyses the concepts of ageism in social relations and age discrimination in employment. Case-studies on generational equity and health care rationing by age are followed by an analysis of the British government's initiatives against age discrimination in employment. The book then traces the history of the debate on health status and old age, addressing the question of whether working capacity has improved sufficiently to justify calls to delay retirement and extend working lives. It concludes with a detailed examination of the origins and subsequent working of the USA's 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

Increased life expectancy and an ageing workforce have highlighted the problem of age discrimination in developed countries. Malcolm Sargeant's Age Discrimination in Employment is an encyclopedic guide for HR specialists and employment lawyers to the nature of age discrimination in the workplace in a number of countries, along with a discussion of the main thrust of employment law in this area, including an analysis of the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006. The book opens with a consideration of what age discrimination is and how it manifests itself at the workplace and elsewhere. It also breaks discrimination down by age (discrimination against young, middle, and senior age employees) and explores multiple discrimination, including age and gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disability. An important reference for HR departments, policy-makers and others concerned with organizational culture and development, discrimination, and social policy.

Current findings on the origins and effects of ageism, as well as ways to reduce it.