A Study on Ageism in the UK: Determining the Generation Most Affected

This essay explores the concept of ageism and identifies the generation in the UK that suffers the most from it, focusing primarily on the challenges faced by baby boomers. It discusses the various forms of ageism, including institutional, interpersonal, and internalized, and examines how stereotypes and misconceptions about older people contribute to discrimination, particularly in the workplace. The essay also highlights the importance of intergenerational teamwork, education, and awareness to combat ageism, suggesting strategies like mentorship and flexible work arrangements. It concludes by emphasizing the need for companies to adopt comprehensive approaches to ensure a fair and inclusive environment for all generations, promoting a thriving multi-generational workforce. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments for students.

WHICH GENERATION
IN THE UK SUFFERS
MOST FROM AGEISM

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Essay...........................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Ageism is basically partiality and discrimination against people on the basis of their age
criteria. This typically applies over the people who are older but can also have the abilities to
affect the younger ones. This particular thing have negatively impacts the mental and physical
health and sometimes lead to earlier death. Ageism might be in the form of racism, sexism or
ableism which can be experienced by anybody at any location (Pickard, 2021 (2). It is universal
and this generally not taken as seriously as it is required to be. The report will discuss the
concept in detail in the form of generating an essay over the topic which is related to the aspects
about the particular generation who are facing most of the ageism within the UK.
MAIN BODY
Essay
Ageism generally illustrate the discrimination against the groups of people or individuals
over the basis of their age. This is categorized into three types such as institutional ageism which
occurs when an institution perpetuates this through their policies and actions, next is
interpersonal ageism which occurs at social interactions and the last one is internalized ageism
according to which it occurs when a person internalizes ageist beliefs. In context of UK, it has
been identified that baby boomers are the generation which faces most of the conditions that are
related to the ageism. Baby boomers are the ones who were born between 1946 and 1964 and
currently between the age group of 57-75 years old (Wilson, 2020 (3). They are considered to be
the least happy generation within the UK in most of the researches. The major reason behind this
is to be their sheer number which has lead to lots of competition from jobs, partners, houses and
all other similar kind of things.
Unlike some societies which gives respect to the senior population, the United Kingdom
is facing difficulties related to ageism. The challenges are affiliated with the systematic
discrimination against the older people because of their age factor. In order to understand the
challenges faced by them and finding solutions to overcome from them, there are certain
stereotypes have been prepared according to which a basic misconception have been generated
about the older people. The misconception states that older people are less physically able to do
their tasks efficiently and are more fragile than their younger counterparts. Apart from this, they
considered as less flexible with certain changes along with lack of technological abilities within
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them. Moreover, they are not interested in order to acquire or enhance those skills within them
as well. This is the major reason that the boomer employees nowadays in UK are facing more
types of discrimination at their workplaces.
According to the studies, it has been evaluated that people in their 60s today are the end
of the post-war of baby boom and even at a position of being forgotten generation. Nowadays,
the ageism or age discrimination has been taken place in maximum manner mostly at the
workplaces. The Civil Right Act of 1964 has set the stage where the discrimination at the
workplaces has been banned which are based on colour, sex, religion and age (Lissitsa,
Zychlinski and Kagan, 2022 (128). Today, in this current generation many of the organization of
UK do not hire the baby boomers as they are less physically active compared to the younger
generation. The company's has been stated that this age generation is not able to conduct and
perform the work active;y and correctly due to ageism and also not perfect in the technology
features which is the major areas of making the work life easier. Lack of technology has makes
the Baby boomer generation to suffer from their age and creates a restriction for them to stay at
home and not enough capable to perform any activity.
Even, the baby boomer generation has been able to follow the strong work ethics and the
longer hours of work whereas the young generation is not able and want to work hard and set a
working criterion where they can change the internal environment by enjoying and making the
jobs creative and equal footing with the peers. Sometimes this generation also faces issues
during the communication with the young generation people and have some misunderstanding as
both age people have different ideologies and structure of doing a business and both the
generation is need equal respect at workplace. Different working style and ideology makes a
vast difference in the business platform and also have the different area of decision-making
process which creates an issue at workplaces. This generation of people are highly experienced
in their job roles and have a lot of knowledge and ideology they had applied and adopted at their
previous time which can be very beneficial for the today's generation people.
Age discrimination has become the vast issue for the baby boomer generation from
which they also have to face challenges and issues at workplace and also at their living area as
young people force them to not perform any activity from which they also harm their mental
health. Dominating the baby boomer generation directly impacts their mental health and
physical health as well. This is also a major reason in UK that many organizations and
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workplaces do not recruit the baby boomer generation as they have mostly suffering from the
health issues from which they are not able to perform the work activity effectively (Kim, Song
and et.al., 2021 (6). Along with this, the baby boomer generation also suffers from restrictions
implemented by their family members to keep them safe and protected by the harm and injury.
This age group of people have to suffered from lack of cognitive skill from which they are not
able to learn and remember the things accurately which can make the obstacle for their family
members.
The people who are comes under the ageism category faces issue related to the fact that
in hiring people as well, old age adults are facing biases at the workplace. Older workers with
similar qualifications to the younger people typically get fewer interviews, shorter interviews
and fewer job offers than the younger ones (Wainwright 2019 (11). Another key findings that
have been identified are related to the fact that companies adherently close off career paths as
well as training opportunities for mature and old age adult workers by assuming that they either
are uninterested or unwilling to accept a new challenge. Although the people at later stages as
well are more interested or likely to work in their later lives. But still they are facing challenges
related to the health, finances and economical manner. Hence, in order to resolve these issues on
utmost priority basis, the companies need to adopt certain strategies that are related to perform
tasks into team working within all types of enterprises. According to various specialists, it had
been evaluated that the companies have to adopt TEAM approach in order to combat ageism at
the workplace. Here TEAM stands for team composition, education and training, awareness and
mentoring. One basic and foremost benefit of having an intergenerational team is to avoid a
massive loss of knowledge as the baby boomers retire. The experiences and knowledge part that
is being possessed by the baby boomer's generation required to be transferred to the next
generation of employees in order for the firm to remain successful and competitive in the future
terms. In some cases, baby boomers are the major team leaders but whether leaders or not they
may require help in order to understand and communicating with their younger colleagues.
Company needs to follow ant discrimination laws which have been over various
generations over the books but it is still necessary for the company to become make sure that
each and every department or employee must completely understand the legal and ethical
responsibilities which is related to provide equal opportunities. Equal opportunity does not
always refer to race and gender but about the age groups as well within the establishment. This
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is the basic accountability for HR people to train managers along with monitoring them which is
a mandatory issue. Ability to learn new technique, accept advanced technologies and become
flexible are certain traits according to which it is highly valuable by managers in current
scenario (Rababa, Alhawatmeh, and et.al, 2021 (2). HR must have to provide opportunities for
training and keep their employees fully updated over technology as they are highly accountable
for unbiased primary job placement. But the involvement of baby boomers within the activities
of the firm are equally significant as the company have to support them rather than just prepare
policies. They have to completely adopt flexible work arrangements such as home based work,
job sharing and telecommunication that might add the flexibility that keeps the baby boomers
completely engaged.
Furthermore, mentoring is also a way through which baby boomers also feels relax as
this procedure generally involved senior level employees who pass wisdom and advice to their
junior level employees. Hence, this is the most successful way of transferring knowledge and
provide assurance for continuous fulfilment of key organizational functions. Mentors also
exercise their leadership with the help of advising, coaching and nurturing their men-tees in
either formal or informal manner (Salter and Salter, 2018 (6). Sometimes the friction among the
younger and elder employees have the capability to affect productivity and in return it does
affects the business performance. Some leaders narrow down their focus over the recruiting and
engaging older people, and reinforce stereotypes that can compound the friction among both
types of employees. The difference of opinion among both types of people usually generates
friction among them. According to the elders, the younger generation are highly impatient and
over ambitious in nature which sometimes create issues. This happens because of the lack of
understanding about the ways in which different age groups prefer to work. On the other hand,
the baby boomers are tended to work in traditionally set environment while the younger
professionals are tended to thrive to work in open, direct and flexible environment and often
requires more hierarchical structure.
Hence, bridging the gaps are equally significant which automatically strive the correct
balance in the hiring and retention strategies. This will happen by using data analytics most
extensively in the hiring procedure. In order to increase their level of understanding of the
abilities, behaviour and motivational patterns. By focusing over the commonalities, leaders
should recognize that some trends cut across all generations. Every generation within the
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workplace requires more or less but work flexibility in order to get their work done effectively
without facing any adverse circumstances. By encouraging reverse mentoring, the younger
people as well as the elder ones have complete opportunity to pass on their ideas with each other
along with their perspectives (Taylor and et.al., 2019 (4). All such efforts are highly able to
combat ageism at workplace in order to ensure not only the firm but the whole economy can
harvest the benefits of a thriving multi generation.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that the company are highly requires
adopting certain steps in order to avoid ageism i.e. age discrimination at the workplace
according to which, the supervisors and employees requires appropriate training specifically
over not doing any kind of discrimination as well as diversity. With the help of appropriate
training, the ageism activity reduces due to which the baby boomers are facing a lot of
difficulties in order to survive within the work space. Thus, ageism within the work premises
towards the baby boomer generation can be seen into varied ways such as hiring practices and
false stereotypes about the older people for instance their lack of flexibility or willingness to
learn new and advanced practices. However, baby boomers holds a lot of power because of their
experiences and limited numbers. The best way to avoid age discrimination is to embrace a
multi-generational workforce.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Kim, J.H., Song, A., and et.al., 2021. The comparative Macro-Level Ageism index: an
international comparison. Journal of Aging & Social Policy.33(6), pp.571-584.
Lissitsa, S., Zychlinski, E. and Kagan, M., 2022. The Silent Generation vs Baby Boomers:
Socio-demographic and psychological predictors of the “gray” digital
inequalities. Computers in Human Behavior, 128, p.107098.
Pickard, S., 2021. Ageism, Existential and Ontological: Reviewing Approaches toward the
Abject with the Help of Millett, Hodgman, Lessing, and Roth. University of Toronto
Quarterly, 90(2), pp.111-126.
Rababa, M., Alhawatmeh, and et.al, 2021. Testing the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral
therapy in relieving nurses’ ageism toward older adults: A randomized controlled
trial. Cognitive therapy and research. 45(2), pp.355-366.
Salter, B. and Salter, C., 2018. The politics of ageing: health consumers, markets and hegemonic
challenge. Sociology of Health & Illness, 40(6), pp.1069-1086.
Taylor, A.W. and et.al., 2019. Health and welfare profile of Australian baby boomers who live
in rented accommodation–implications for the future. Ageing & Society. 39(4), pp.685-
702.
Wainwright, D. and et.al., 2019. Extending working life and the management of change. Is the
workplace ready for the ageing worker?. Ageing & Society, 39(11), pp.2397-2419.
Wilson, D.M., Errasti‐Ibarrondo, and et.al., 2020. Identifying contemporary early retirement
factors and strategies to encourage and enable longer working lives: A scoping
review. International journal of older people nursing. 15(3). p.e12313.
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