As an aging individual, you look forward to the days when you can retire and fall back on your retirement and savings to keep you satisfied and comfortable. One thing that you’re concerned about is the potential for age discrimination, which could hurt your chances of getting the retirement you want or working as long as you’d like.
Age discrimination protection usually covers those ages 40 and older. The goal is to prevent these individuals from being harassed because of their age.
What is age discrimination?
In a workplace, age discrimination can appear in a few different ways. One is through the verbal actions of coworkers or clients. For instance, nicknaming someone “Grandpa” because he or she doesn’t know the newest technology and is over 40 could be a sign of latent age discrimination beginning at work.
Another type of age discrimination could be if you are not promoted despite having all the qualifications for a position just because of your age. For instance, a company may want a “younger” look for potential employees and “hide” older workers away by keeping them in lower positions. This is not only unacceptable but morally upsetting to many people.
With age discrimination, you could face harassment as well. Harassment would include name calling, derogatory statements or offensive acts or statements toward an older individual. A harasser can be almost anyone from a client and customer to the CEO of a company. No matter who it is, the harassment has to be stopped by the employer as quickly as possible.
Age discrimination affects applicants, too
Even applicants for jobs may face discrimination based on their ages. For instance, someone who is 50 may only work until 65, but someone who is 40 has another 10 years to potentially provide services to a company. While that’s a simple equation, the person who is 50 shouldn’t be denied the job simply because of the shorter available time to work. Why? There’s no guarantee that anyone will remain at a company, and there is no reason to turn a qualified applicant away due to age.
Age discrimination is hard to deal with and something no one should have to struggle with in the workplace. It makes applicants and employees uncomfortable and unhappy on the job, so it should be eliminated from any workplace as soon as possible. Whether it’s verbal or physical harassment, it is not legal on the job.
