Aging Challenges: Ageism

Aging challenges related to ageism refer to the discrimination faced by older individuals, which can manifest in various forms and impact anyone as they age. As the demographic of older adults grows—one in six Americans was 65 or older in 2023 and this population is expected to double by 2060—ageism in society is likely to increase. Four types of ageism have been identified: personal, institutional, intentional, and unintentional. Personal ageism involves individual biases against older people, while institutional ageism encompasses systemic practices that marginalize them, such as mandatory retirement laws. Intentional ageism consists of deliberate actions that exploit older adults, like targeting them with scams, while unintentional ageism occurs without conscious awareness of the biases being perpetuated. The consequences of ageism are significant, affecting older adults’ wellbeing, employment opportunities, and social interactions. To combat these challenges, various legislative measures, such as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and initiatives like the Older Americans Act, seek to protect the rights and improve the quality of life for older individuals. Understanding and addressing ageism is crucial as society navigates an increasingly aging population.

Published in: 2023

By: McMahon, Maureen

Subject Terms

Aging Challenges: Ageism

Abstract

Ageism is a form of discrimination that can, eventually, affect anyone. In 2023, one in six Americans was 65 years old or older (Searing, 2023). The elderly population in the United States is expected to double between 2018 and 2060 to reach 95 million people (Population Reference Bureau, 2023). As a result, an older workforce, older caregivers, older medical patients, and older community members will be commonplace, and an increase in ageism may occur. Different forms of ageism are discussed here, with examples provided for each. In addition, various anti-ageist legislations are also discussed, and research is provided to suggest ways to combat ageism. Discrimination directed toward the aging population is one that everyone can—and possibly will—experience.

Overview

Aging Challenges: Ageism. Many people have experienced some form of discrimination. The heavy girl was picked last on a team at recess; the kid with dyslexia was considered lazy by his teachers. While these are common scenarios, they do not occur based on a fixed situation. For example, the heavy girl could have a thyroid problem and, once it is controlled, become of average weight. The student with dyslexia could utilize accommodative services and become a strong student. The person who is 60, though, can never be 30. In contrast, though, everyone who is 30 (barring an untimely death) will someday be 60. Thus, unlike other situations, discrimination directed toward the aging population is one that everyone can—and possibly will—experience.

The population of people over the age of 60 has multiplied in the past century. In 1920, life expectancy at birth for a White male was 54, and a White female was expected to live until she turned 56. In 1991, the same people could expect to live to 73 and 80, respectively (Barrow, 1996, p. 7). In 2014, the life expectancy for men had risen to 76.4 and to 81.2 for women (National Center for Health Statistics, 2015). Though life expectancy dropped a small amount in the 2020s, it remained higher than thirty years prior (Shmerling, 2022). The added years have been attributed to advancements in medicine, in both prolonging life and decreasing the infant mortality rate. Learning to live without ageism is a prospect Americans may want to consider.

Dr. Robert Butler coined the term "ageism" in 1968. He was the director of the Anti-Ageism Taskforce of the International Longevity Center. The task force evaluated conditions for aging individuals and produced a 2006 report entitled "Ageism in America." In the introduction, Butler (2006) noted how prolific the aging population has become:

In the twentieth century, the industrialized world gained some thirty additional years of life, greater than had been attained during the preceding 5,000 years of human history and transforming what was once the experience of the few to the destiny of many (Butler, 2006, p. 1).

According to the task force (2006), there are four types of ageism:

Personal Ageism - Ideas, attitudes, beliefs, and practices on the part of individuals that are biased against persons or groups based on their older age.

Examples:

Exclusion or ignoring older persons based on stereotypic assumptions
Physical abuse
Stereotypes about older persons and old age

Institutional Ageism - Missions, rules, and practices that discriminate against individuals and or groups because of their older age.

Examples:

Mandatory retirement
Absence of older persons in clinical trials
Devaluing of older persons in cost-benefit analysis

Intentional Ageism - Ideas, attitudes, rules, or practices that are carried out with the knowledge that they are biased against persons or groups based on their older age. "Intentional ageism" includes carrying out practices that take advantage of the vulnerabilities of older persons.

Examples:

Marketing and media that use stereotypes of older workers
Targeting older workers in financial scams
Denial of job training based on age

Unintentional Ageism - Ideas, attitudes, rules, or practices that are carried out without the perpetrator's awareness that they are biased against persons or groups based on their older age. Also known as "inadvertent ageism."

Examples:

Absence of procedures to assist old and vulnerable persons living on their own in emergency situations (e.g., flood, heat wave)
Lack of built-environment considerations (ramps, elevators, handrails)
Language used in the media (Anti-Ageism Taskforce, 2006, p. 21).

Furthermore, the article entitled, "Advancing the Sociology of Ageism" (2007) offered yet another kind of ageism based on a person's perception. According to the article, the mere perceived prospect of ageism can affect a person's health, well-being, and behavior while at work (p. 257). Perceived discrimination may seem like a form of paranoia, but just because someone is paranoid does not mean he cannot tell when he is treated unfairly. Unfair treatment can be perceived anywhere but may be most noted when an aging adult is reliant on someone else for his care.

Further Insights

Personal Ageism: Stereotypes. To stereotype a group of people is to make a generalization about them. As a society, Barrow (2006) notes, Americans like tidy packages, even if they are inaccurate pictures of reality (p. 24). People are labeled with stereotypes because such labels "fulfill a human need to structure and organize situations in order to minimize ambiguity and to clarify where we stand in relation to others" (Barrow, 2006, p. 24). The tidy package is a poor attempt, however, to compartmentalize the various differences of each individual. Just as College Student A is dissimilar in comparison to College Student B, so too is Older Person #1 different from Older Person #2.

Yet, the stereotypes exist: older people are lousy drivers; the elderly are cheap, weak, and feeble; senior citizens are grouchy and set in their ways. Applying these labels allows people to ignore this population and who they really are—themselves in a few years. The fear of becoming old (and not knowing what will happen to us as we age) is what most likely perpetuates these negative stereotypes. However, noting the individual differences of older people—members of their families, work experiences, where they have traveled and why, and what makes them happy—can reduce that fear. In addition, reminding ourselves that many older people are lively, productive, and contribute in great ways to society (presidents, musicians, queens, Nobel Prize winners, actors) can ease the confusion about what growing older really means.

Institutional Ageism: Ageism in the Workplace. From the time that people are able to speak, they are asked what they want to be when they grow up. Would it not be funny to hear the response, "I want to be retired so I can enjoy being a senior citizen"? Nobody says that because Americans are programmed to believe that to be productive in society means they must work. In fact, many leave high school only to enter another educational system in order to make them better-qualified candidates for employment. With so much importance placed on work (i.e., what we "do"), it is no wonder that older people would feel mistreated when an opportunity to work is withheld, reduced, or removed.

To reduce the possibility that such mistreatment would occur, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) was signed into legislation in 1967. Its purpose is "to promote the employment of older persons based on ability rather than age, to prohibit arbitrary age discrimination in employment, and to help employers and workers find ways to address problems arising from the impact of age on employment" (29 U.S.C. 62i(b), as cited in Dennis & Thomas, 2007, pp. 84-85). McCann (2003) noted that the original legislation set the age criteria (maximum age) at 65; this was increased to 70 in a 1978 amendment of the Act and was tossed out completely in 1987 so that no age maximum is currently listed for discrimination purposes (as cited in Dennis & Thomas, 2007, p. 85).

The Act prohibits an employer from acting in the following ways:

Failing to hire a worker because of age.
Discharging a person because of age.
Discrimination in pay or other benefits because of age.
Limiting or classifying an employee according to his or her age.
Instructing an employment agency not to refer a person to a job because of age or to refer that person only to certain kinds of jobs.
Placing any ad that shows preference based on age or specifies an age bracket. (This action carries exceptions for the federal government [positions for air traffic controllers or fire fighters], employers of less than twenty persons, or jobs where youth is a "bona fide occupational qualification," such as modeling teenage clothes) (Barrow, 1996, p. 157).

Limitations of ADEA. The ADEA has brought progress with regard to equal-opportunity employment. However, in 2015, there were 20,144 ageism complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the enforcement authority for discrimination within the federal government (US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2015). Though the number of suits filed has risen significantly since the beginning of the twenty-first century, in 2022, it had declined to 11,500 (EEOC, 2023). However, proving claims of ageism remained difficult.

Furthermore, "[u]nlike sex and race discrimination suits, and other types, brought under the Civil Rights Act, the ADEA does not provide for compensatory damages for physical and emotional harm or for punitive damages" (Anti-Ageism Taskforce, 2006, p. 77). In addition, what might be the most common type of age discrimination in employment—not hiring a candidate because he or she is older—is the most difficult kind of age discrimination to prove (Anti Ageism Taskforce, 2006, p. 78). Indeed, it would be difficult to show reasonable cause (i.e., proof) for discrimination when an employer hires a younger candidate, as there are many reasons the employer could offer for his decision. However, in the 2008 case Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Lab, the Supreme Court ruled that employers must prove that an elderly person was fired because of reasons other than age.

Referencing an AARP study from 1995(a), Dennis & Thomas (2007) noted that there was a disconnection between what older individuals were renowned for and what employers wanted:

Older workers often are rated high on experience, judgment, commitment to quality, low turnover, good attendance, and punctuality. But surprisingly, among the twelve participating large companies [in the AARP study], these traits were not highly valued in the workplace. Conversely, traits in which older workers were rated low were those that managers value in the modern work environment and see as critical to a company's success (p. 87).

In an attempt to encourage equal treatment of older people, AARP created a competition in 2001 to "recognize companies and organizations with the best practices and policies that address the issues of an aging workforce" (Dennis & Thomas, 2007, p. 87). Companies submitted to AARP their policies on recruiting, educating, and training their employees and were judged based on those practices. Employers were also evaluated for their health and financial benefits and opportunities for people getting ready to retire, and in an effort to not lose the skill and experience of an older workforce set to retire, some companies were rehiring their retirees to train a younger workforce (Dennis & Thomas, 2007, p. 87).

Intentional Ageism. Targeting the elderly as victims of criminal activity is common and devastating, as many seniors do not have the means to recover what is lost to a con artist. According to the article, "Medicare Marketing Scams" (2006) an alert was issued by Medicare based on reports of a telephone scam to enroll seniors in a drug plan. The premise of the con is for seniors to enroll in a fake Medicare drug plan for a one-time fee, which the company will gladly retrieve with the customer's bank account number, which is then used to empty the account. Another form of the scam involves the swindler entering a person's home pretending to be a Medicare representative. One way to influence compliance with the con is to report that Medicare requires all seniors to purchase drug coverage, which it does not. Once convinced of the requirement, seniors are willing to comply in whatever way necessary (Medicare Marketing Scams, 2006). Elderly people remained the main target of scams as the twenty-first century progressed. In 2021, 92,371 older Americans had been involved in some type of scam (Waterman, 2022).

Block (2006) explained another Medicare drug coverage scheme. According to the Better Business Bureau, solicitors called seniors claiming to be government officials attempting to gain bank account information to verify that the seniors are eligible for drug cards (as cited in Block, 2006). Account access can also lead to identity theft and the establishment of credit cards in the seniors' names, a crime that has also been noted in nursing homes. Jordan (2002) also noted that scams involving home repairs are common against the elderly. These scams come in various forms. A contractor can offer an estimate of $5,000 to repair a roof and only complete work totaling half of that estimate. Further, con artists can request cash for materials and only purchase part of what they claim to need. Jordan continues,

Many elderly people have insurance, pension plans, proceeds from the sale of homes, and money from Social Security and savings that makes them attractive financial targets for criminals… they remain more susceptible to telephone and mail fraud … They often … live in older homes in need of repair, and have immediate access to their money, much of it in cash (Jordan, 2002, p. 21).

In addition to being targeted by strangers, many seniors are taken advantage of by family members. According to Helen Marks Dicks of the Elder Law Center at the Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups, "theft from family members is one of the most common and underreported types of elder abuse" (as cited in Block, 2006). Any time a person gives legal authority over their finances to someone else, he runs the risk of losing his rights to those finances. Marks Dicks reports that in some of these cases, family members "transfer homes to their names or drain the senior's savings accounts. The crime often goes undetected until the senior is impoverished" (as cited in Block, 2006).

Unintentional (Inadvertent) Ageism: Community Perceptions. Most people consider stealing from an elderly person as a blatant disregard of conscience. However, unintentional ageism is just as cruel because it is more pervasive and quietly responsible for an inaccurate view of an entire population. To determine just how pervasive an ageist view is, Mueller-Johnson, Toglia, Sweeney, and Ceci (2007) conducted a study evaluating the perceptions of more than a thousand undergraduate students. In the study, the researchers created a mock-trial case in which witness testimony was provided; each student received a case summary with the age of the witness varying randomly between 49, 69, 79, and 89. Each student was supposed to rate the witness based on "convincingness, confidence, quality of observation, accuracy, honesty, competence, memory, suggestibility, and cognitive functioning" (Mueller-Johnson et al., 2007, p. 355).

Interestingly, as the ages increased (79 & 89), the male witnesses were considered to have a higher cognitive function than their female counterparts of the same age. In contrast, the females at age 49 were considered cognitively stronger than the males at 49 (Mueller-Johnson et al., 2007, p 361). These results show a difference based on aging genders. Women are viewed as smarter than men in their middle years, it appears, but they lose cognitive function as they age, whereas men have an increase in cognition as they age. To determine if an ageist preconception was correlated to these beliefs, Mueller-Johnson et al. (2007) replicated their study, including a survey measuring ageist attitudes for each study participant to complete.

In this second study, the age of the witness remained at 79 for each study participant. The gender of the witness and the timing of the survey completion varied randomly, with some participants completing the survey before reading the case study. The researchers note their findings.

Participants' scores on the ageism measures were related to their ratings of witness characteristics, specifically for the characteristics of convincingness of statement, the accuracy of the statement, and quality of the witness's observation and memory, as well as the level of the witness's cognitive functioning. As expected, for these characteristics, participants who showed a more positive attitude towards older persons also rated them more favorably as witnesses. (Mueller-Johnson et al., 2007, p. 370)

Mueller-Johnson and colleagues (2007) noted that this study showed a clear link between perceptions of the credibility of older people and ageism (survey) scores; here, clearly, the stronger the ageist attitude, the less credible an older witness is perceived (p. 373). This information brings serious implications to the criminal justice system as the amount of older people increases. With the possibility of two out of twelve people on a jury being over the age of 65 and the prevalence of older people available to witness crimes, it may be reasonable to have ageism surveys available at each court preceding that include someone in this population.

Responding to Ageism: The Older Americans Act. According to the Administration on Aging, the Older Americans Act (OAA) was established in 1965 to offer various services to older Americans throughout the United States. Made up of volunteers and non-profit agencies, the OAA primarily assists older individuals with the greatest financial need, those who are socially isolated, and those with health concerns. However, OAA does not discriminate and makes its services available to any older persons requesting them.

Supportive services like transportation to appointments or shopping, repair work, house cleaning, laundry, etc.,
Nutritional services (Meals on Wheels),
Preventive health services (vaccines, routine check-ups),
Caregiver respite and support,
Advocate services to protect the rights of older people, and
Services to Native American elders ("Older Americans Act," 2008).

In addition to these services, a branch of law has also been created to assist older Americans. The National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, Inc. (NEALA) was established in 1987 to coordinate the various legal issues surrounding older people and service providers. NEALA "provides a resource of information, education, networking and assistance to those who deal with the many specialized issues involved with legal services to seniors and people with special needs" (NEALE website). As a result of NEALA's establishment, the coordination of services has been created throughout the United States to offer counseling, legal, and social advocacy support to clients and their families (Arnason, Fish & Rosenzweig, 2007, p. 7).

Bringing Old & Young Together. Children learn from fairy tales that villains are old, ugly, and mean: Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, and Cinderella all have evil adversaries fitting this description. Further, young adults rarely see positive images of older people in the media. Barrow (1996) noted that preschool children tended to hold mixed perceptions of the elderly, viewing them as having positive personality traits but negative physical capabilities (p. 30). Similarly, college students noted the physical aspects of aging, identifying wrinkles, gray hair, and a lack of energy as the most common features of the population (p. 31). Sadly, it seems that as children grow up, they stop identifying older people as individuals with different qualities, identifying the elderly based on physical characteristics alone.

In order to change the stereotypical perception of the elderly, Evelyn Pezzulich, a Professor of English, created service learning coursework opportunities to bring her students closer to the reality of who the elderly are (Pezzulich, 2007, p. 115). Pezzulich (2007) created two different projects: the first was "a Book Club with members of the Bridgewater Senior Center and [the second was] a Reading Group with residents of the Bridgewater Nursing Home both institutions being located in the same town as the college" (p. 117). Students who volunteered for the service learning options noted a new perspective of the elderly after discussing literature and creative writing with the older population on a regular basis. The older participants noted their experiences positively as well, citing the interactive discussions and the value they contributed to the students' work as beneficial to their self-esteem (Pezzulich, 2007, p. 118-119).

Fiona Patterson, Assistant Professor in Social Work, also created opportunities for her students to view aging from a personal perspective. As AARP is supposed to promote aging in a positive way, Dr. Patterson had her students look through the magazine and note "article topics, photographs, illustrations, and ads in terms of how they actually present elders, who is there and who isn't, what people are wearing and doing, and with what status implied" (p. 171). Patterson (2007) noted that this task usually led to discussions about how the elderly were typecast even when they were the intended audience of a publication; in this magazine, older people were either shown as grandparents, as behaving foolishly, or they were not shown at all (p. 171).

Discussion. Times may be changing, though. Cox (1990), a historical anthropologist, pointed out that an increasingly industrial society—which relies more on technology than on people to complete many tasks—will encourage an emphasis on life after employment, thus giving baby boomers a more positive place in society than former elders have had (as cited in Barrow, 1996, p. 367). In addition, Butler (2006) noted that the newest generation of senior citizens had the capacity to change society's perception of aging:

Baby boomers, the largest generation in US history, have become senior citizens. They will probably be a transforming generation because of their unique position in society. Baby boomers are more educated than the generations that preceded them and have a history of social activism and a sense of entitlement (Butler, 2006, p. 4).

Further, as this generation ages, so do its successors. If children learn to expect change and embrace how different individuals are, stereotypes will have no place in society.

Terms & Concepts

Administration on Aging (AoA): A Federal agency created to advocate for older Americans by promoting their contributions and by providing various services through the Older Americans Act (OAA).

Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA): Signed into legislation in 1967 to promote hiring and employment based on ability instead of age; also prohibits discrimination based on age.

Ageism: The discrimination of someone based on his or her age.

Bias: A preference toward or against something based on unfair reasoning.

Discrimination: Treating a person or group unfairly based on a prejudice against that person or group.

Elder Abuse: Mistreating (physically, psychologically, or sexually) a person who is categorized as elderly.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC): The enforcement authority for employment discrimination within the federal government.

National Family Caregivers Association (NFCA): Offers education, support, and advocacy for those in caregiving situations.

Older Americans Act (OAA): Established in 1965, this law provides services to older individuals; services such as transportation, meals, and advocacy are provided free of charge by the Administration on Aging

Perceived Discrimination: The impression (or belief) that one is being discriminated against despite a lack of provable evidence.

Stereotype: Generalization (oversimplification) about an individual or group of people

Bibliography

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Aging Challenges: Ageism

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Subject Terms

Aging Challenges: Ageism

Abstract

Overview

Further Insights

Terms & Concepts

Bibliography

Suggested Reading