The workplace can feed or curb ageist behaviors: here’s how

Ageism is the single most common form 

of discrimination found at workplace level, even exceeding discrimination based on gender or ethnicity

Laura Naegele, researcher at the Department of Aging and Labour Work at the Institute for Gerontology at the University of Vechta in Germany

When it comes to ageism in the workplace, we tend to have a matter-of-fact approach and try to cope with it. But how does it exactly come about? New research is filling the gap, exploring what happens at the company level. A 2018 study (published open source and accessible here) has been conducted by a team of European researchers.

Laura Naegele from the  Institute of Gerontology at the University of Vechta in Lower Saxony, Germany, Wouter De Tavernier from the Centre for Comparative Welfare Studies at Aalborg University in Denmark, and Moritz Hess from the SOCIUM Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy at the University of Bremen, have analyzed the “space” half-a-way between the individual attitudes and the social conscience.

Sifting through a large quantity of studies, the researchers have identified seven main determinants of ageism in the work environment and this is how they occur.

Why did you decide to focus your attention on this subject?

There’s a wide body of research about discrimination and women in the workplace, sexual and racial inequalities, but compared to these variables, age tends to be overlooked. But we know that ageism is the single most common form of discrimination found at workplace level, even exceeding discrimination based on gender or ethnicity. 

Despite efforts to constrain discriminatory behaviors via law-making and employment policy, ageism is still prevalent in organizations and companies. We thought that identifying the factors that foster or mitigate ageism in these situations was important as ageism impacts not just on older workers’ lives, but also on the organizational performances, the economy, and the society as a whole.

Are the effects of ageism in the workplace measurable? For example, in terms of lost productivity, reduced turnover, decreased wellbeing of the workers, level of satisfaction…

Albeit there is a vast amount of studies, there is no clear answer on this subject. A colleague of mine suggests that we can identify costs for the negative effects of ageist behavior: older workers tend not to get offered training opportunities which affects their skill levels and ultimately their potential job-fit. Also, they get overlooked for promotions.

This situation hampers their career development and affects the best possible use of acquired competencies. Furthermore, we cannot forget that experiencing stereotypes and discrimination in the workplace can influence older workers’ productivity, commitment to the job, and early retirement intentions making it ultimately more costly for companies. 

I find particularly interesting that, contrary to what policy makers have been suggesting for decades, the employment of older workers correlates positively with the one younger ones. Can you tell us more about it?

It is a very common misunderstanding that pushing older workers out of the labor markets leads to more employment opportunities for younger cohorts. While the practice of early retirement of older workers was quite common in the Seventies and Eighties, we are now beginning to realize that it’s not sustainable for our economies in the long run. Labor forces are shrinking and we need “all hands on deck.”

On top of that, older and younger workers are not interchangeable. When an older worker leaves, his accumulated skills, knowledge and experience leave with him. Because it takes time to gain these qualities, a younger worker cannot simply fill the vacant spot, not to mention the fact, contrary to older age cohorts who were used to the idea of being employed by the same company their whole working lives, younger workers are more mobile resulting in a higher risk of personnel fluctuation.

The effects of this situation are felt on the overall company performance and, ultimately, on the economic growth. Evidence suggests that all parties involved benefit when both young and older workers prosper in their profession.

Are companies ageist by design?

No, I wouldn’t say so. But it is true that companies play a role in preserving, cultivating or - on the other  hand - reducing ageism within themselves. Focusing on existing studies, we have identified seven determinants of age discrimination in the work place, but there might be more.

Can you tell us about them?

The first one is the organizational structure and hierarchy. Any organization is designed to guarantee that only the workers who comply with the logic of the company can reach higher positions. Along the process there is a series of “filters” that can take the form of company benchmarks, as an example, the criteria used in the performance evaluation. Or they might be natural social infrastructure: individuals tend to form informal networks with other individuals who that are similar to them. So, if the upper hierarchy is composed of older workers, workers in the same generation can benefit from the situation and vice versa.

Things are a little bit different in the new types of organizations with flat hierarchies. Here, individual workers get more tasks and more responsibility. If the value is placed on knowledge and trust, this might benefit older workers who are generally perceived as more knowledgeable and trustworthy. On the other hand, the perception of older workers as less creative might be a disadvantage for this age bracket. So, knowing how things work in one’s company can help assess the risk of age-based discrimination.

What are the other determinants?

We have considered the age structure of the workforce, the company size, shared values and aspects, as well as age-friendly human resources. The concept of the “relative age” of an individual compared to the average in a sector, company, or profession is a basis for age discrimination, especially if that “age” is attached to certain negative stereotypes.

The bigger the gap between the worker and what is considered normal for a certain function/position, the higher the risk to encounter ageism. While there is not a final consensus on the way this dynamic operates, it appears that in cases of high age diversity, the relationship between workers is exacerbated in the presence of managers with ageist attitudes and lessened in cases of diversity-oriented human resources. 

If they want to counteract ageism, what should companies pay attention to?

Not only structural characteristics like the size or sector of a company determine the level of ageism in the work place, but also soft factors are at play. For example, managers should strive for a culture that does not allow discriminative behavior and companies should develop an age-friendly corporate identity, by freeing their internal and external communication of ageist language - there are plenty of examples in the contemporary job descriptions - and avoid discriminative behavior in their hiring and promotion process.

Although, I recognize that it’s kind of difficult to hide experience (or the lack thereof) in an age-blind CV. Basically, companies should questions themselves more and this applies to companies that sell ageist products, like marketing and advertising, too. There’s a lot of space here to think about age diversity.

It is also important to have a human resources management strategy that aims to fight ageism. Including older workers into training courses and promoting age-diversity in learning are measures that can decrease ageism in the work place. Training in particular is key to avoid the risk of having less productive groups of workers. The same applies to age-blind promotions and specific programs like part-time retirement, retirement consultations, support for caring obligations, and life work-time accounts that allow older workers to “save” over-time during the course of several years to use them to work less later on.

Does the company size matter when it comes to ageism?

Research in this regard is limited, but there is a relatively more positive view of older workers within small and medium sized enterprises. The prevalence of less formal, work-integrated measures focused on older workers in small and medium sized companies can also be considered a preventative factor in ageist behavior.

Do things change by industry type?

We know that different sectors perceive younger or older workers differently. More positive stereotypes of older workers can be found in retail and healthcare, whereas negative stereotypes occur in the educational sector, public administration, manufacturing, and advertising. 

Are there other elements you have identified as a source of ageism in the workplace?

We are dealing with a quite paradoxical situation. While many countries prohibit age discrimination, some authors argue that the legal retirement ages are one of the leading forms of age discrimination since they exclude people en masse from the workforce due solely to their age. That’s why the company’s attitude towards their aging force becomes increasingly important.

Finally, what would you suggest for workers to do to deal with these issues?

While a number of law firms have established themselves in the lucrative market of assisting human resource managers to avoid lawsuits by terminated older workers, I think it’s important for workers to be aware of age-based discrimination, to be confident in one’s strengths, and actively address perceived negative stereotypes and cases of discrimination with their managers.