We have seen for centuries how women have been discriminated against because when they become available to have children, employers have seen them as ‘at risk of pregnancy’.  When they take time out to bring up their children, their future careers are constrained.

I was intrigued by an article in The Guardian, in November 2023, where they were talking about how work has conquered every day of the week and how do we remain human in a world that worships toil? This is a particular challenge as we get older, when we recognise that our capacity to provide the same level of activity and, our desire to provide the same level of activity, can be significantly diminished.

Just to imagine that you are confronted with these positive and negatives views of people in the workplace.  I invite you to go through this list and answer this question, “which relate to younger people which relate to older people”?

From the research that The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Report on Ageism drew upon, there is a very useful catalogue of different stereotypes, based upon different institutional settings that are represented across different countries.

I recently came across a report, developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) : The Global Report on Ageism in 2021.

One of the things that is interesting in this report is how they see the definition of ageism.

When the Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride, in August 2023, suggested that older workers consider work in the ‘gig economy’, such as being a Deliveroo rider, it was immediately controversial.

It was in 2022 that the BBC published an article about whether delaying ageing can be achieved by refusing to act your age.  It was fascinating to understand the results of a survey in 2017 asking what people believed was middle-age and old-age.  On average people in their twenties and thirties said that middle-age began […]

With the recent excitement around ChatGPT and Google’s response with Bard, Artificial intelligence is on the agenda as never before.  With the Goldman Sachs report highlighting the threats to employment for certain classes of workers, it has become something that is central to people’s perception of how our working lives are going to change.

In an earlier article I talked about how the media has so much impact on the way we see ourselves.  It is interesting how a current campaign of the Centre for Ageing Better is calling out many of the things that the media do by default.

Wales is the first country in the UK to appoint an older people’s commissioner for Wales.  We’ve had Children Commissioners for a long time and the Welsh commissioner has been in post for a number of years now.  She has stated four key objectives as her commissioner priorities.

As I write this, in March 2023, we have just had the most recent iteration of the Oscars and there has been some backslapping, I would say, about the fact that an older woman has won an Oscar.  It is very interesting to see the way that awareness of promoting older women has grown within the acting community.  Coincidentally, I listened this morning to Desert Island Discs, the Michael Caine celebration, where he was talking about his life and his continuing role as an actor into his late eighties, early nineties.

The most recent census in England and Wales was conducted in 2021, relatively recently. Census Day was during lockdown and the pandemic. Many people were on furlough or working from home. But there are still some very interesting things that emerged, which I think make a big difference when we start to think about the opportunities for us to make the most of our working lives as we get older.

Building an intergenerational workplace can bring many benefits, including increased diversity of thought, access to different skill sets and experience and a richer understanding of the needs and perspectives of different age groups

In autumn 2022, the Centre for Aging Better launched its challenge to sign up employers to the Age-Friendly Employer pledge.  It is fascinating to see what that pledge consists of.  The Centre for Ageing Better believe that as well as being a good thing and the right thing, there is a compelling business case for employers.  The job market is changing.

I try to keep an eye out for recent cases where ageism has impacted the future of an organisation.  The truth is that more and more employment-related issues that come to dispute are featuring ageism as one of the reasons that employers are having to pay out at industrial tribunals

It’s very interesting to look at how different societies are responding to the changing age of their populations.  Some societies, with a rapidly growing young population, are responding to the challenge of providing futures for younger people by introducing lower retirement ages.

We are strongly influenced by images in the way that we think about groups of people.  What comes to mind for you when I say pop star?

I’m increasingly noticing that ageism is coming up the corporate agenda: very, very slowly, very gently, but it is beginning to emerge.  However, for senior professionals working in large organisations who are becoming aware that ageism is an issue, there’s a real dilemma.

There are very good reasons that most discussion about ageism has focussed on discrimination against older people.  However, ageism for younger people is deeply engrained in government policy and social norms.

Many of the people reading this will be in their forties and fifties.  They will have senior, responsible roles in organisations.  They’ll have huge capacity to influence the environment in which they operate today.

The number of ageism cases coming to Employment Tribunals has been steadily rising.  Recently I had a look at the report of a case because I wanted to understand what kinds of things are going on when ageism becomes part of court litigation.

Too often, “old” and “vulnerable” are brought together in describing how we should respond to a certain group of people. But the assumption that because I’m old, I am vulnerable is a classic ageism trope.

The cry of the youngster is, ‘when I grow up, I want to…’, sometimes I want to become…, sometimes I want to do… . When I leave home, I will be able to … .Maybe it’s get that job, be with that person, go to that particular part of the world, have the travel, have the house.

Sexism and racism provide a continuing challenge to the attitudes and culture of organisations and society at large, and have now been adopted under a broader agenda of diversity and inclusion. In the UK the Equality and Human Rights Commission has responsibility for encouraging equality and diversity, eliminating unlawful discrimination, and protecting and promoting the human rights of everyone in Britain.

The youngest age a child can work is 13, unless they obtain a performance licence.  Generally, there is no compulsory retirement age (with the exception of age limits set by law or jobs that require certain physical abilities).

It is very interesting to see the ‘Older People and employment: Women and Equalities Committee report’ developed by the House of Parliament Select Committee published almost a year ago, and the response to it.

When I was in my early twenties people would introduce me as a computer ‘whizz kid’ and that was really exciting! It was in the early days of the whole micro-computer revolution and being considered a ‘whizz kid’ was the equivalent of the fashionable ‘geek’ of today’s current generation.

I’m a firm believer in the power of dreams when it comes to achieving what we want from our relationships and our working lives.