Kelly Williams
AREAS OF LIFE WHERE THERE IS AGE INEQUALITY
One area of life that there’s age inequality is in health. The first piece of evidence for this is the ICM Research Pain and Dignity Survey of 2008 that found that 64% of older people felt they weren’t treated with dignity by nursing and medical staff. This is an inequality as elderly people are therefore being treated differently to others purely because of their age, indicating that there’s an issue of discrimination against age within health. A person’s age shouldn’t determine the treatment they’re given by medical staff as everyone should receive the care they need and a person’s age shouldn’t prevent them from doing so.
The second piece of evidence regarding age inequality in health is from Lievesley (2009) who observed medical staff and found evidence of prejudice and ageist attitudes among health care professionals. Again, this establishes that there is age inequality within health as a patient’s age has been found to determine the kind of treatment given by medical staff. Such inequality impacts of surgeries offered to patients, i.e. some surgeries have been found to be limited for older people. This is age inequality as age has determined a person’s likelihood of receiving potentially life changing surgery and this again displays age discrimination within health. Such inequality may be the cause of higher death rates in the UK among older patients than in other Western countries.
Another area within society that displays age inequality is in the workplace....
