Ageism – 2

In 2011, workers filed more than 23,000 complaints of age discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), reflecting the stresses of the recession. Age discrimination charges are difficult to prove because employers know better than to tell workers that they’re not being hired—or are being passed over for promotion—because of age. When experiments were done in which pairs of individuals applied for the same job using credentials that were identical except for their ages, most companies expressed much more interest in the younger applicants. Yet research shows that older workers often have better skills and are generally more dependable. Their absentee and turnover rates are lower, and they have fewer accidents. They’re also more loyal to their employers.

Older Americans are more likely to be harmed by others in their own homes than they are in a nursing home. In about 90 percent of elder-abuse cases reported, the abusers are family, most often the spouse but also adult children. And physical abuse (including sexual attacks) isn’t the only problem. Older people are subjected to verbal and emotional abuse. Some are neglected or abandoned, and others are exploited financially. Elder abuse is vastly underreported because the victims are too ashamed or afraid to ask for help, but experts estimate that one to three million older Americans are targets of abuse every year. Abusers justify their actions to themselves and to others by their ageist attitudes, such as the beliefs that older people are generally unhealthy, old-fashioned, useless, senile, in mental decline, a burden and so on.

The assumption that older adults have deteriorated mentally is a negative stereotype. In fact, most healthy, older people have no trouble learning or remembering, though it may take them a little longer than when they were younger. Other common, negative stereotypes include beliefs that most adults over 65 are in poor health, that most live isolated lives below the poverty line and that many are senile. Advertisers and the media often promote the view that those who are wrinkled look not only old but also ugly. Wrinkles, which could conceivably command respect, instead signify a failure to stay young.

In January 2012, almost 17 percent of Americans 65 and over were still part of the workforce. Many others volunteered: they worked in schools, delivered meals to the homebound, mentored the owners of small businesses and found other ways to contribute to their communities. In addition, many older people are caregivers for family members. About 2.5 million are actually raising one or more of their grandchildren.

It’s a fact that, thanks to Medicare, those 65 and over are better off than younger individuals who don’t have health insurance. In other ways, younger adults get better care. Studies show that many medical professionals are biased against older patients. Doctors often fail to offer them aggressive treatments such as chemotherapy, despite evidence that many respond well to it. Just 1 percent of physicians are trained geriatricians, and some doctors without this training assume that problems common in later life are a normal part of aging and untreatable. For instance, researchers report that as many as one-third of doctors mistakenly believe that it’s normal for blood pressure to increase with age. What’s more, according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), 60 percent of older adults don’t get all the recommended preventive care, including flu and pneumonia vaccines and screenings for common cancers.

Though that sometimes happens, a bigger problem is that TV ignores older people almost entirely. A study done in 2005 found that less than 2 percent of evening programs included adults 65 and up, though they’re almost 13 percent of the population. Researchers note that advertisers will pay more for commercials on shows likely to attract people 18 to 34 years old, so that's what networks favor. According to TV writer and producer Robert Seidman, ad agencies put a premium on programs appealing to the young because, compared to people on the far side of 50, younger viewers watch so much less television, and that makes them harder to reach. Seidman says that advertisers can deliver their message to older people in lots of ways that are more cost-effective than prime-time TV.

The belief that the majority of people in their 60s and beyond live alone, have little contact with others and are lonely is a common, negative stereotype. In fact, about two-thirds of these individuals are married or reside with family. Even those who live alone generally have frequent contact with relatives, especially adult children. A study done for the Pew Research Center in 2009 found that among older individuals who had children, more than half were in touch with a son or daughter every day, and another 40 percent made contact with one or more of their adult children at least once a week.

Gerontologist Robert N. Butler, MD, notes in his book The Longevity Revolution (2008) that there are two conflicting myths about older Americans. According to the negative stereotype, most are mired in poverty. According to the positive one, they are generally affluent and a powerful, self-interested voting bloc—“greedy geezers,” as some have put it. Neither statement is true. In fact, about 10 percent of Americans 65 and older have incomes below the poverty line, roughly the same proportion as in the general population, Butler says, and very few are well-off. He reports that about 8 percent have annual incomes above $50,000, and many of those individuals are still in the workforce. As for politics, seniors differ as much in their political beliefs as younger people do and they rarely vote as a bloc on any issue.

The American fear of aging is fueled by negative, ageist stereotypes, often promoted by the media. A 2009 Pew Research Center survey asked adults under 65 what they expected to happen as they grew old and asked others who were 65 and up what they had experienced. In every category, from memory loss to loneliness to trouble paying bills, the younger respondents anticipated a much more difficult future than the older ones reported actually happened.

The research that uncovered this amazing fact was based on a 1975 survey of 660 older adults in Ohio who were asked how they felt about their own aging. In 1998, Yale University psychologist Becca R. Levy, PhD, checked to see how these Ohioans had fared over the years. She found that, on average, those who felt positive about growing older lived more than seven years longer than those who had a negative outlook. What’s more, over time the people with a positive attitude functioned better—they walked, climbed stairs and generally moved more easily. Her study suggests that for older people, it’s risky to fear old age.