Today’s society is obsessed with ageing. Everywhere we look we are exposed to modern media promoting youth. This fear of aging powers a stereotyping culture, limiting the social view on the older community. Social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Snap chat are fuelling society’s fixation with youth, treating the aging process as a curse. How individuals perceive themselves and how their attitudes form toward their own ageing is shaped by personal experiences and interactions with older people. Creating a cultural belief of older people as all being “the same” based on how someone thinks about and interacts with an individual. With an ageing population living longer than the generations before, understanding how and why negative social attitudes and behaviours to ageing are developed and perpetuated, can lead to drive positive change and shape what that means for the older version of themselves.
The case study highlights age discrimination and ageism among mature aged people and what it looks like in the workplace. This paper will identify, analyse and discuss the various effects of age discrimination practices have on mature workers in the workplace. It also gives various recommendations on how organisations discrimination against old workers may be reduced and explore the positive and negative effects of diversity on organisations or individuals.
Everyone has the right to work in a harassing and discriminating fee environment, and while federal and state laws are in place to ensure fair employment opportunities, discrimination still impacts all areas of the employment relationship.
Discrimination is known as the unfair treatment of a person based on prejudices, by one social group toward another (Justice 2015). Workplace discrimination can be defined when an employer takes adverse action against a person employed or seeking employment due to their age, race, gender, medical condition, religion, relationship status, national origin or ethnicity, disability, or other legally protected characteristics defined under Government legislation (Truter 2016). Discrimination against personal characteristics can form in any stages of employment including recruitment, job offers (terms and conditions), employee entitlements, development, salary structure, promotions, and dismissals (Justice 2015). While there are a few common types of workplace discrimination, there is a countless number of discriminating behaviours that still take place in organisations today. In many instances, people do not realise they are a victim of discriminatory practices, and cases go unreported. Some of the effects of these behaviours are employment refusal, denial of employee entitlements, compensation or benefits, denial of development, training and promotion opportunities, or even exclusion or isolation by colleagues (Broderick 2010).
Discrimination can appear subtle so it necessary for employees to familiarise themselves with their Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) rig...
