Ageism in the Workplace

I am going to start this out with a personal story: the setting is a corporate office. I am sitting across the table from my manager and longtime friend. It is time for my yearly review. I have worked for the company for nearly four years.

I am a 28 year old woman and sitting across from me is a man approaching his 67th birthday.

He begins by paying me many compliments, and gushes about what a great employee I have been. I thank him and say what a pleasure it has been working here. He continues by telling me how critical I am to the team and reminds me of all of the policy and operational changes I have implemented over the years and how those changes have really helped the company. I thank him again and begin to state that I love working here and see myself moving up within the company, hopefully one day soon. He looks a bit troubled by my comment and then gets up to close the door. After the door is closed, he looks me in the eye and says that he would like to “level with” me. He then tells me that while he thinks that I have done an incredible job, there are others within the agency, such as his boss (whom I also do quite a bit of work for) that have actually advocated against me to a certain degree. I asked what he meant, and he stated that they “see me as a child, and that is all they will ever see me as”.

This was a devastating blow, as I had just let him know that I was looking for advancing my career within the company. His boss, is a 78 year old woman. Her and my boss have both stated in multiple meetings that “millennials are all idiots who don’t know anything about real world experience or how to actually put in a hard day’s work”. I have butted in on occasion, as one of two under 40 year old employees in our department to state that that is simply not true, however they respond with “we weren’t talking about you, no need to be defensive”; but now it seems that this is exactly what they were talking about. Those in power in my department happen to be two generations ahead of me, and now I am told that it does not matter how hard I work or how much qualifying experience I have—I will never be able to move up at this company because of my age.

“Age discrimination involves treating an applicant or employee less favorably because of his or her age” (U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2019). There are some laws that have been put into effect that are meant to keep discrimination out of the workplace. “The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older. It does not protect workers under the age of 40, although some states have laws that protect younger workers from age discrimination. It is not illegal for an employer or other covered entity to favor an older worker over a younger one, even if both workers are age 40 or older” (U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2019). However, this does not protect those who are discriminated against for being too young. “The Supreme Court has established that an employer does not violate the ADEA by providing preferential treatment to older worker over younger ones, even where the younger workers are over the age of 40” (Midwest New Media, 2019).

Social dominance theory indicates that all individuals belong to groups and each group provides resources, both physical and cognitive, for the people that belong to the group; therefore people are motivated to protect the group, so that it in turn can protect them. In this theory, people are believed to be always motivated to protect the group(Schneider, Gruman & Coutts, 2012). This theory also indicates that society is arranged by systems of group-based hierarchies and the persons within those groups are typically motivated to behave in ways that perpetuate and continue those established hierarchies. Age demographic is an easily discernable factor in identifying an individual belonging to one group or another.

Discrimination is not always black and white and thus our laws regarding it should perhaps not be so black and white.“In the recent discrimination case, General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc v. Cline, No. 02-1080, 540 U.S. (2004) the company and its union negotiated a collective bargaining agreement that offered retirees health benefits only to those employees who were at least 50 years of age at the time of the agreement. A group of employees who were in their forties sued, claiming that the age requirement constituted illegal age discrimination in violation of the ADEA. The Supreme Court held that the ADEA only prohibits discrimination in favor of younger employees and does not address discrimination that favors older workers” (Midwest New Media, 2019). Meaning that the ADEA does not protect anyone of being discriminated against for being too young, even the person is over 40.

“As of 2017 –56 million Millennials (those ages 21 to 36 in 2017) were working or looking for work. That was more than the 53 million Generation Xers, who accounted for a third of the labor force. And it was well ahead of the 41 million Baby Boomers, who represented a quarter of the total. Millennials surpassed Gen Xers in 2016” (Fry, 2018). This is the largest demographic who is entering or has entered the workforce and there are no protections for anyone in this age group in reference to policies concerning age discrimination. “More than one-in-three American labor force participants (35%) are Millennials, making them the largest generation in the U.S. labor force, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data” (Fry, 2018). I personally have been effected by the lack of protections for those who the older generation might consider as “under-aged”. It is sad to me that there is nothing I can do at this point besides look for other employment if I would like to move up in my career, but it seems under the current protections that is all I can do.

 

References:

U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (2019). Age Discrimination. Retrieved February 14, 2019, from https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm

 

Fry, R. (2018, April 11). Millennials are largest generation in the U.S. labor force. Retrieved February 14, 2019, from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/11/millennials-largest-generation-us-labor-force/

 

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles: Sage.

 

Midwest New Media. (2019). Workplace Fairness. Retrieved February 14, 2019, from https://www.workplacefairness.org/age-discrimination#7

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