The enduring myth of endemic age discrimination in the Australian labour market

Abstract

Abstract It has often been stated by older people's advocates that discrimination affecting older people is commonplace and ongoing in the Australian labour market. In this article, we contrast such rhetoric with a review of evidence from recent large-scale surveys which demonstrates that low and declining numbers of Australians experience age discrimination, while highlighting the complexity of the phenomenon. We identify the emergence of a fake ‘age’ advocacy that is acting to the detriment of an informed public discourse concerning issues of older workers’ employment. To counter this we propose five underlying principles for advocacy on ageing and work: countering myths concerning the extent and nature of age barriers in the labour market; avoiding and challenging the use of age stereotypes in making the business case for older workers’ employment; recognition that age interacts in complex ways with a range of other factors in determining people's experiences of the labour market; challenging public understanding that is grounded in the notion that generational conflict is inevitable; and discarding traditional notions of the lifecourse in order to overcome disjunctions and contradictions that hamper efforts to encourage and support longer working lives.