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Age Discrimination

AGE DISCRIMINATION INVOLVES any differential treatment of a person because of his or her age. Many forms of age discrimination are perfectly legal. For example, Social Security and Medicare are only available to people over a certain age. Life or health insurance companies may charge older people higher rates because of the actuarial likelihood that they will become sick or die sooner. Numerous laws discriminate between the treatment of children and adults. Thus, age discrimination laws have a more narrow focus than many other antidiscrimination laws such as those prohibiting discrimination based on race or sex.

Legal Protections

Federal laws barring age discrimination are primarily focused on employment discrimination. The first major legislation in this area was the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967. This act has been amended many times since then. Many states also have separate laws protecting people against age discrimination. Those laws largely replicate federal law, with some variations such as providing greater coverage.

The ADEA was modeled after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The ADEA's statement of findings and purpose asserts in part, “… older workers find themselves disadvantaged in their efforts to retain employment and especially regain employment when displaced from jobs.” Thus, the law sought to protect workers from losing their job, being denied advancement, or being refused a job because of their age.

Ironically the ADEA itself discriminates on the basis of age. Only people aged 40 or older receive protection under the act. The reason for this limitation is that the act is designed only to protect older workers perceived as being “too old” for a job, not younger workers perceived as being “too young” for a job. The Supreme Court has gone even further by holding that even workers over the age of 40 are not protected when they are treated less generously than even older workers. In the case General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc. v. Cline, in 2004, ending retiree health benefits for employees aged 40–50 while retaining them for employees over age 50, was ruled permissible under the ADEA.

Reasons for Age Discrimination

In order to better understand the sources of age discrimination, one can categorize age discrimination on the basis of the motivation of those who engage in the perceived discriminatory act. The first, most base form of so-called ageism is that of animus discrimination. It is present if the motive is to discriminate due to an inherent prejudice against older workers, that is, a potential employer simply has a personal bias against older people. Animus discrimination is less of a factor in age discrimination as compared to other groups because most people making employment decisions are either in the protected group or soon will be.

Moreover a firm that practices animus discrimination on the basis of age would most likely find it hard to recruit workers in their preferred age group because, unlike the potential biases for other protected groups, such discrimination is one that current young workers and recruits could potentially be subjected to in due time—thus decreasing for all age groups the desirability of working for such an employer. Possibly recognizing this, the Department of Labor report that first advocated passage of the ADEA did not even address this type of discrimination.

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