A  SYNOPSIS

Current literature on ageism addresses issues at macro state levels and micro levels of personal experience and raises important questions about

1. Applying the principle of 'age-neutrality' (Debate of the Age, 1999a)

2. Challenging explicit ageist policies, in health care, social care and benefits

3. Identifying and challenging covert ageism in organisations and decision-making

4. The symbolic value of legislation

The debate is lively because the ratio of dependants to the working population is growing with the balance among dependants weighted to people over 65 who

will constitute 18% of the population in 2001. When resources are finite, sharing between generations raises issues of intergenerational equity.

Those over 65 consume large resources, 45% of social services expenditure (1997) and 42% of NHS expenditure (1999) though, within these categories,

it is people over 85 years who make the most use of services.

It is not known in what ways and to what extent policy setting and resource rationing may be ageist. Ageism is a 'process of systematic stereotyping of and

discrimination against us when we are considered old' (Bytheway, 1995:118) which when encapsulated in general culture, institutions and language, undermines

status, creates dependency and devalues a whole section of society. Discrimination on grounds of chronological age is not biologically determined and tends to

focus on the negatives.

Literature indicates that the salient forms of discrimination are:-

• in healthcare where overt discrimination in government policies and clinical practice has been revealed by a series of studies and challenged as wrong by the BMA, Age Concern and others.
• employment policies enforcing retirement which has created a structure dependency of older people alongside an economic dependency maintained by low pension levels
• in social services where literature alludes to covert rather than explicit ageism in training and decision-making on resource allocation
• benefits which have been challenged for setting age limits to certain entitlements

The right to work, to services and to representation raises moral issues and rights of citizenship that should be addressed by all sectors of society.

The principle of equality is part of our morality and applies as much in the face of discrimination on the basis of chronological age or life expectancy as it does to discrimination on the basis of gender, race or other arbitrary features. (Harris, 1998). Few countries have legislation against age discrimination but there may be symbolic value in legislation.

So far lobbying organisations on behalf of the elderly in Britain have not had the impact of similar organisations in the USA. Changes may be in process because:

• a declining workforce signals labour shortages so that the value of mature workers will rise
  
• across Europe issues of equality and discrimination are being reviewed
  
• in Britain Human Rights legislation will open up avenues to challenge discrimination

Lesley Cullen, Research Fellow
International Institute on Health and Ageing
Bristol University, July 2000

on behalf of  L-E-A-D.

Lobby to End Age Discrimination