Age Bias More Universal?

Now this may be a surprise to some of us, but almost 10,000 people a day are turning 65 and will do so for about the next 16 years. Who are those people, you ask? Well, I reply, the Baby Boomers, of course! And as you may recall from a post last week, the Boomers just keep working.  What does this mean to the work force?  For many it means that it is important for us to understand that many individuals hold a negative bias against older workers, what I’m referring to here in this post as “age bias”.

Helaine Olen wrote about this bias issue in the NY Times March 24, 2014 article, Discriminate Against the Old? Even the Old Do It. According to the article, working longer isn’t as easy as it sounds

Unlike those from previous generations, who in the popular imagination happily shuffled off to leisure, most of the new retirees say they want to stay in the paid work force… So far, however, staying on the job — in any position — is turning out to be harder than the baby boomers anticipated (and, in some cases, less desirable). Fewer than a fifth of Americans over the age of 65 remain in the paid work force. If a man or woman over 55 is unemployed, it takes that person several months longer than someone younger to find a job. Such people are also disproportionately represented among the long-term jobless.

The article notes that age bias studies are being generated, but identifying the problem and solving it, are two different issues.  It appears that age bias can have an across the board negative impact on the workplace, with “[r]esearch show[ing] that bias against senior workers decreases the engagement of everyone in the workplace.”  Although we might teach our students about ADEA claims filed with the EEOC, the article notes that “[e]ven though age discrimination claims at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are up sharply in recent years, older Americans have little recourse if they believe they are victims of illegal bias, since it is hard to prove.”