By Lyndi Schrecengost
This article is part of a short series on age bias. An earlier essay on why age bias matters can be found here.
An aging, longer-lived U.S. population makes it critical to increase employment among older workers if the economy is to continue to grow. And while saving earlier, saving more and investing wisely are still crucial for everyone in the workforce looking to build post-retirement stability and wealth, longer and healthier lifespans make it just as important for people to continue to work past the typical retirement age and refrain from tapping into their savings for as long as possible. Yet, there is ample evidence that age discrimination, especially in hiring, is impeding efforts to encourage people to work longer.
Retirement is changing, with older people staying in the job market longer or returning to work after retirement, often in gig, part-time or consultancy work. Maura Porcelli, senior director of the Senior Community Service Employment Program at the National Council of Aging, works with low-income job seekers to improve their job search skills. She notes how the current economy has changed the type of client who now comes to them for help:
The food and housing situation has changed so dramatically over the past few years. We see people who thought they had done their due diligence and had planned out their retirement on a fixed income. Their financial planning has not kept up with inflation. They are an economic crisis or a health crisis away from having to dig into their retirement savings. It’s no longer a choice. They have to work.
Feeling Frustrated and Thwarted
Searching for a job is a challenging and humbling process at any age. But for today’s older workers it often feels like an exercise in futility. According to AARP, workers over the age of 50 are unemployed three times as long as their younger counterparts. And in a survey from the American Staffing Association, more than 3 out of 4 baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) said they thought their age would be a contributing factor when being considered for a new position. This anxiety doesn’t just make older workers hesitant to apply for jobs, it also causes them often to stay in their current positions rather than pursue new opportunities.
Older workers can submit hundreds of online applications without receiving a single acknowledgment, much less a callback. If they are asked for an interview, they may never be informed of the outcome or why they were not chosen. They are, in essence, ghosted.
In a Word
An older worker scanning the job ads today quickly learns to recognize when an ad is signaling that younger workers are preferred. Ads that say “no more than 7 years of relevant experience” or “recent college graduate” are transparently discriminatory. But ageist language is typically far subtler. Employers have become more adept at masking age discrimination in their job descriptions. Seemingly innocuous phrases such as “high-energy” or “cutting-edge” or “digital native” or “marketing ninja” are recognizable by older workers as code for “no one over 40 need apply.”
This is not just semantics. These ads have actually been shown to deter older applicants from applying. In fact, a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research showed that job ads containing ageist language attract more young job applicants and deter older applicants. This, the researchers argue, has the same effect as direct age discrimination and suggests that some employers are trying to shape the job applicant pool, possibly because it will reduce the likelihood of actual age discrimination being detected. In other words, you can’t be accused of age discrimination if older applicants simply don’t apply.
And it’s not just job applications that frustrate older workers. David Neumark, an American economist at the University of California, Irvine, has done extensive work on age discrimination in hiring. In a study published in 2021, he found that the callback rate was higher for younger applicants than for older applicants, a clear indication of age discrimination. This was particularly true for older women, a troubling phenomenon, as many women outlive their husbands, have a more complicated career trajectory because of their principal role in child-rearing, and thus are more likely to face financial challenges in their later years.
If fortunate enough to be called in for an interview, older applicants may find themselves confronted with disarmingly inappropriate questions such as:
When do you expect to retire?
Are you comfortable working for a younger manager?
When did you graduate?
Can you keep up with our company’s technology demands?
Will this job be too physically challenging for you?
Where do you see yourself in five or 10 years?
Do you have any chronic diseases or other health issues?
Who Shows Up at the Watercooler (Coffee Bar)?
The word “inclusiveness” is bandied about a lot today. But for many job seekers, inclusiveness seems to apply only if you are born into the right generation. Sometimes the very way a company characterizes itself can be off-putting to older workers because it suggests a youth-centric atmosphere that will not be welcoming to them.
Older employees report being told by Human Resources personnel that they are looking for someone with a “fresh vision” or a “younger vibe.” Apart from their questionable legality, these comments are a way of telegraphing to older applicants that their age is a strike against them. And because they often take place in the context of a phone screening interview or an online interview, these remarks leave less of a breadcrumb trail. Meanwhile, job ads that request the right “cultural fit” are thinly veiled hints that applicants must be up-to-date on industry jargon and younger generational trends.
And it is not just that older job seekers don’t see themselves represented in job ads; the applications themselves can be exclusionary. Porcelli related a disheartening experience one of her clients had: “We worked with one job seeker who said that when they were applying for a job online, they saw that their high school graduation year was not even an option in the drop-down menu. It didn’t go that far back.”
Even when older applicants get an interview, they can often find themselves shunted aside once prospective employers discover their age. For example, Frank (not his real name) is a retired waiter from Columbus, Ohio, with extensive experience in the restaurant industry. He looks young for his age and has no health issues. Recently, he decided he wanted to go back to work part-time to make a little extra money and “to give me something to do.”
Frank answered a help-wanted ad at a local restaurant and interviewed with the owner, who appeared very eager to hire him. “He told me he could use someone with my experience and that he would start giving me some shifts right away,” Frank says.
But everything changed after Frank filled out the employment application. “Once they found out my age,” says the 82-year-old, “they wouldn’t give me the time of day.” In fact, the owner’s story changed immediately. “All of a sudden, he didn’t have any shifts for me. He said he’d made a mistake when he told me he needed me. He said he’d call if things changed, but I knew that was a lie.”
Misconceptions About Older Workers
Age biases can be implicit or explicit, real or perceived, but they are everywhere around us. For example, AOL frequently runs articles from its home page with titles like: “27 useless Boomer skills no one needs anymore.” The message is loud and clear: If you’re over 60, you’re obsolete.
The type of age-biased language and attitudes that surface in job ads and interviews is not happening in a vacuum. Behind this language is a set of misconceptions and stereotypes.
1. Older workers are just putting in time until retirement
According to a 2015 American Psychological Association study, when comparing younger adults (age 20–31) with older adults (age 65–80) on 12 tasks, researchers found the latter group to be consistently more productive and reliable.
Porcelli commented on the eagerness her clients have to learn and improve: “We often hear that older adults aren’t interested in advancement in the workplace, that they’re really focused on that end goal of retirement. A lot of employers and hiring managers make assumptions that older adults aren’t interested in continuous training and advancement in an organization. The fact is, those opportunities are not extended to older workers much of the time. A lot of older workers have a very high level of dedication and commitment to their jobs and organizations. Not having access to that training and continuing development is alarming to them.”
2. Older workers aren’t tech savvy or up-to-date in their skills
Are today’s employers exaggerating the actual technological acumen needed of their employees? Lack of familiarity with something should not be confused with incompetency. While older workers do often have a learning curve with regard to newer technologies, this does not mean that they are unwilling to put in the time and effort to learn them.
A recent survey from the Pew Research Center found that smartphone ownership and social media use continues to grow among older people. For those between the ages of 50 and 64, for instance, this use jumped from 34% in 2012 to 83% in 2021 for smartphones and 37% to 73% for social media during the same period.
Porcelli stressed how eager her clients are to embrace digital learning: “We work with job seekers who are so hungry for training in digital skills and improving their digital literacy. They clamor for it. We have hundreds of people doing computer training in our program. They know they need that skill and are enthusiastic to embrace the training. That access to training is so important.”
3. Older workers aren’t innovative or adaptive
While today’s younger workers may be more driven and digital savvy, they often fall short compared to older workers who bring experience, circumspection and serenity to their work. Older workers have been shown to be less swayed by office politics, eager to share what they know with younger workers and, despite popular belief, more resilient. In short, they are much more likely to think outside the box.
Conversely, many younger workers are seen by employers as more transient—they have less staying power and often see their job as a stepping stone to something else.
A thoughtful employer will respect the difference between fluid intelligence—the capacity to think quickly and reason flexibly to solve problems—and crystallized intelligence, which involves drawing on preexisting information or skills, particularly language, social and communication skills—an asset older workers have in great abundance. Researchers stress that the differences between younger and older workers with regard to fluid intelligence are negligible, and that one way for older workers to improve their abilities in this area is by giving them professional training opportunities and more novel things to do.
While there is some decline in processing speed and memory as we age, other cognitive abilities remain stable or even get better with time: reading comprehension, vocabulary, social skills—to name a few.
4. Older workers cost more
In today’s increasingly crimped economic climate, employers should not assume that older employees cost more. With regard to benefits and salary, employers should adopt the stance of: “You don’t know until you ask.” Many older workers are open to a lower salary, as long as they are valued, respected and given an opportunity to grow. And older employees bring a lot of other skills to the table that are often ignored or devalued by employers, such as years of institutional knowledge that are irretrievable once gone.
Alison Chasteen, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto, points out: “Just because a person retires or is approaching retirement does not mean they suddenly stop having all this expertise and knowledge. There are so many opportunities for older people to share their knowledge and wisdom at work, but also in mentorships and volunteerism. And there is so much more we could be doing to connect the different age groups so that what they share with one another can be capitalized upon.”
Making Age Discrimination a Priority
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) prohibits employment discrimination against people 40 and older. Such discrimination is illegal at any stage of employment—hiring, promotions, raises, layoffs and workplace harassment.
But a 2009 Supreme Court decision—Gross v. FBL Financial Services—placed a much higher burden of proof on workers who allege age discrimination vs. those who make bias claims on the basis of race, religion or gender. After Gross, older workers had to show that age was the sole or main reason for an adverse employment decision.
Fortunately, several recent high-profile cases may stir up the legal landscape. In June 2024, RTX, formerly known as Raytheon, was named in a class action age discrimination lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. According to the plaintiffs, Raytheon has routinely rejected and deterred job candidates age 40 and older while giving preference to recent college grads. Last year, Scripps Clinic Medical Group, based in San Diego, agreed to pay almost $7 million to settle claims that it had subjected physicians to age and disability discrimination when it imposed a mandatory retirement age of 75.
But there is still a long way to go. Penalties for age bias still pale when compared to those for other forms of discrimination, and the ADEA appears to be more effective at mitigating age discrimination in cases of termination rather than hiring. As Neumark and others have suggested, amending the law to allow age as not just a determining factor, but a contributing factor in cases of age discrimination, will put the ADEA more on a par with protections afforded racial, gender and other types of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, giving America’s older workers more of a fighting chance.
Based in Northern Virginia, Lyndi Schrecengost is a freelance writer specializing in health and wellness.