ageism

Clippings – November 18th, 2024 TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on November 18, 2024
  • Marianne Cooper (Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University’s VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab) and Priya Fielding-Singh (Senior Manager of Research and Education at LeanIn.org) wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review on how gender equality in the workplace has stalled and is not inevitable. Data from the 2024 Women in the Workplace report by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company revealed that last year the gender wage gap widened for the first time in two decades. Cooper and Fielding-Singh describe several barriers to workplace equity for women, including getting stuck in entry level positions, sexual harassment, ageism, and housework and childcare responsibilities.
  • The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint ran a story on the experiences of agricultural workers in California (about 75% of whom are undocumented migrants) during the election year. Manuel Ortiz Escámez (Audio-Visual Sociologist and co-founder of Peninsula 360) commented on the impact of immigration as an election issue. “People are very afraid,” he said. “Power in politics needs to invent a physically and morally repugnant enemy who wants to take what’s yours because the feeling of emergency creates unity and the need of a savior. That’s why migrants have always been the ideal enemy of some U.S. political campaigns … and the data shows that it works.”
  • In an interview with El País, Ruha Benjamin (Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University) discussed the hidden power structures behind technology and how imagination can challenge established systems. “Technological innovation is not the same as social progress,” Benjamin explained. “A lot of innovation can simply reinforce old ways of thinking and hierarchies. Technological advancement often hides harm and violence.”
  • The New York Times ran a story on the unclear expectations on caregiving for older, unmarried couples and their families. Deborah Carr (Professor of Sociology at Boston University) commented that the trend of increasing (unmarried) cohabitation among older couples reflects an attitudinal change: “The old stigma around ‘living in sin’ has pretty much disappeared.” Susan Brown (Professor of Sociology at Bowling Green State University) explained that cohabitation allows older couples to avoid some of the constraints and expectations of marriage. Brown described that many women “aren’t interested in the gendered bargain that marriage entails, the caregiving role,” and women who have already been a caretaker to a previous spouse often “bring a been there, done that, attitude to remarriage.”
  • Ireland’s Science Week 2024 focused on environmental regeneration. Silicon Republic ran a story featuring Áine Macken-Walsh (Senior Research Officer at Teagasc’s Rural Economy and Development Programme), who studies the values, knowledge, and practices of farmers and other agricultural actors. Macken-Walsh emphasized that members of the public should be seen as partners in STEM, adding value to science and translating it into real-world contexts. “Regeneration of family farming, for instance, requires the maintenance and preservation of some existing farming practices and land resources, while also innovating to meet contemporary needs, for example gender equality [and] environmental protection,” she explains.

The Invisible Employee

Andrew Wiebe on February 11, 2013

At 80 years old, Hubert Elliot is North Carolina's oldest Department of Transportation Worker. Photo by NCDOT Communications via flickr.com.
At 80 years old, Hubert Elliot is North Carolina’s oldest Department of Transportation Worker. Photo by NCDOT Communications via flickr.com.

As the baby boomers age, so does the American workforce. It is projected that by the end of this decade, a quarter of the nation’s workforce will be fifty-five or older. Sociologist Amy Blackstone, of the University of Maine, took interest and undertook a study of this group’s workplace experiences. In a piece for the Bangor Daily News, Blackstone explains the distressing results:

While older workers generally report positive experiences on the job, there are notable patterns in the harmful experiences they report. A significant number of older workers report feeling undervalued and bullied at work. Further, many older workers do not speak up about their negative experiences, nor do those who witness bullying or harassment of older workers intervene on their behalf.

In Blackstone’s survey results, older workers said they felt devalued by their younger coworkers, as though they were useless. They felt ignored and even bullied. One woman wrote:

“After about age 60-65, I began to notice that people would sometimes ignore me as though I had become invisible.”

Blackstone provides a few suggestions for improving employment for older workers. These include educating and reminding employers and employees of the importance of a positive workplace atmosphere, the knowledge and experience older workers may hold, and the need for support and bystander intervention.

Ageism: It’s Bad News when You Get No Respect

Alex Casey on January 18, 2012

Photo by Jan Siefert via flickr
Photo by Jan Siefert via flickr

Some experience discrimination throughout their lives, while, for others, it’s simply living long enough that leads to discrimination. According to research from Clemson University sociologist Ye Luo and her team that’s reported in The New York Times‘ New Old Age blog, nearly two thirds of those over age 53 report having been discriminated against—and the leading cause they report isn’t gender, race, or disability. It’s age.

Now, on its own, this statistic isn’t terribly surprising—many studies have turned up high levels of ageism. But Luo told the Times she was shocked that, over the two-year period of their study, everyday discrimination was found to be associated with higher levels of depression and worse self-reported health. The association held true even as the researchers controlled for general stress resulting from financial problems, illness, and traumatic events. As the Times reports:

Interestingly, the discrimination effect was stronger for everyday slights and suspicions (including whether people felt harassed or threatened, or whether they felt others were afraid of them) than for more dramatic evens like being denied a job or promotion or being unfairly detained or questioned by the police. “Awful things happen and it’s a big shock, but people have ways to resist that damage,” Dr. Luo said. “With maturity, people learn coping skills.” Every day discrimination works differently, apparently. “It may be more difficult to avoid or adapt to,” Dr. Luo suggested. “It takes a toll you may not even realize.”

Although trends may shift as more data comes into focus, it’s already clear that the well-being of older adults is being affected when they experience ageism in their social interactions.