Ageism is the discrimination of people according their age. It is a widespread behavior that has negative impacts on the health of older individuals. It is a daily challenge in such peoples’ daily lives. Such people are denied employment opportunities, denied social services and stereotyped in the media among other grievances. It is not easy for the elderly and youth to get employment in the current society. There is a shortage of employment for youths and the elderly and the few lucky individuals who retire get part-time jobs to keep them busy.
The elderly are looked upon as overqualified individuals who might want a higher pay and this makes most employees to consider hiring young people for less money (Gonzales, Matz-Costa & Morrow-Howell, 2015) . Another disadvantage that makes it hard for the elderly to survive in employment is that they are believed to be less energetic as compared to the youth. The work place is a version of society which reflects the bias that comes along with age. This has highly affected decisions concerning employment, benefits, training and other decisions that are made by employers. Senior citizens are believed to be forgetful and clumsy hence less productive at work. This has become a challenge for older people regarding the fact that they lack a sense of belonging.
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The rates of employment are high in individuals that are below 65 years of age (Shanafelt et al., 2015) . In contrast, the employment rate for those above 65 are relatively low. This issue can be solved if such people are provided with even part-time jobs in order for them not to feel like they are left out. The most common act of ageism in work places is seen in the hiring process (Sargeant, 2016) . Most of such incidents go unreported because is not easy to prove the discrimination act. Older employees are viewed as not flexible enough, not aggressive enough and not flexible enough to adjust to technological and other changes in the work place.
References
Gonzales, E., Matz-Costa, C., & Morrow-Howell, N. (2015). Increasing opportunities for the productive engagement of older adults: A response to population aging. The Gerontologist , 55 (2), 252-261.
Shanafelt, T. D., Hasan, O., Dyrbye, L. N., Sinsky, C., Satele, D., Sloan, J., & West, C. P. (2015, December). Changes in burnout and satisfaction with work-life balance in physicians and the general US working population between 2011 and 2014. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 90, No. 12, pp. 1600-1613). Elsevier.
Sargeant, M. (2016). Age discrimination in employment . Routledge.
