Another Problem with No Name: Boomers and Age Discrimination in the Workplace

Millions of Baby Boomers and older workers anticipate pursuing work beyond their mid-60's, the traditional time for retirement. For some, deficient retirement assets point to a history of hard luck and inadequate saving. For others more fortunate to have saved, the Great Recession has decimated retirement accounts, forcing delayed retirement.

Now MetLife’s Mature Market Institute (MMI), a research division of the global insurance and financial services company, has published an eye-opening study entitled, Buddy, Can You Spare a Job? Published in conjunction with David DeLong & Associates, this study confirms that working beyond traditional retirement age is one consequence of looming economic peril. According to the report, of those between 55 and 70 who need to keep working, about six in ten have less than $250,000 in retirement assets. The MMI study elaborates further:

Thanks in part to the recent recession, many older Boomers do not have the retirement savings needed to support them into their mid-eighties. And about three-quarters of today’s workers report they expect to work for pay after they retire.

Among those who expect to stop working for pay later than expected, two-thirds (67%) say they need to do so to recover/rebuild financial resources for retirement and slightly more than four in 10 (44%) expect to stop working three to five years later than originally planned.

Given extraordinary economic pressure to continue working beyond traditional retirement age, older workers nevertheless confront entrenched obstacles to staying employed and finding jobs:

The survey also finds that, among those who are currently seeking work or are retired and unable to find work, 43% state that the primary reason they have not been able to find work was because they could not find an employer who would hire someone their age.

As I’ve written in books and articles for years, age discrimination is one of the most difficult social and economic penalties to prove culpability, but assuredly it lurks. It’s incredibly easy for employers to cite myriad reasons, other than age, why an older job applicant did not become employed. Yet, among those over age 50 looking for work, many believe instinctively that their age is a factor in why they don't get job interviews and offers. Statistics support these concerns: in fiscal year 2008, EEOC recorded 24,582 charges of age discrimination, up from 19,103 in 2007.

If Boomers and older workers hope to achieve sustainable age inclusiveness in a profound and immediate way, they clearly must confront age discrimination in a manner reminiscent of their past activism. A precursor social movement that comes to mind is the rise of feminism in the 1960s.

Modern feminism took off because of unmet internal needs among women, particularly homemakers in the 1950's and early 1960's. Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, poignantly articulated this “problem with no name”:

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning [that is, a longing] that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries … she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question -- "Is this all?"

A leading personality in the “second wave” of the U.S. Women’s Movement and cofounder of the National Organization for Women (NOW), Friedan noticed a widening fulfillment gap between her roles as mother and homemaker and her aspiration to put her college education to work as a journalist and author. A 1957 survey of her classmates at Smith College, at the time of their 15th college reunion, further reinforced the presence of a churning undercurrent of dissatisfaction with gender inequality. It turned out that millions of women wanted a more equitable playing field.

Then workforce needs arose. The nation began to emerge from a manufacturing and blue-collar economy, one that traditionally favored male workers. A robust post-war economy also allowed more high school graduates to attend college. As millions of Boomer women pursued college degrees in the 1960s and 1970s, the nation created millions of new jobs in white-collar sectors, including professional services, management and information technology.

Pervasive psychological needs for social change plus fundamental structural changes in the nature and availability of American jobs combined to propel a consciousness movement toward gender equality in the workplace. The movement caught fire as Freidan’s thought leadership quickly became mainstream value consensus.

The nation is now confronting convergence of forces similar to those that helped spawn the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The first force is inner, unmet needs.

By not finding suitable and sustainable employment, millions of male and female Boomers and older workers are experiencing feelings of inadequacy, anger, resentment and depression. These are brutal emotional penalties for the crime of aging.

Yet disenfranchisement of older workers comes at a time when the nation is also confronting shortages of qualified workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a shortfall of 8 million workers in the United States in 2010. This dramatic human resources deficit coexists with mounting concerns that a mass Boomer exodus from the workforce could leave many industries at competitive disadvantages globally, especially science, healthcare and engineering sectors.

Thus, systemic age discrimination and challenging workforce demands could coalesce to stimulate a consciousness movement around age inclusiveness. But any grassroots and organized resistance against age discrimination still lacks a third essential ingredient: poignant thought leadership articulating the problems while rallying focused activism.

This critical third force for change has yet to be realized because a lucid and persuasive communicator and organizer has not yet surfaced -- someone who, in the spirit of Betty Friedan, articulates the injustices of age discrimination and then organizes dispirited sufferers into an irrepressible political juggernaut. Even Friedan confronted the injustices of ageism in her book The Fountain of Age without successfully inspiring another movement, a National Organization for Aging. Her 1993 book simply may have been too early.

Now read Betty Friedan’s excerpt from The Feminine Mystique again, this time edited from the perspective of age discrimination:

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of underemployed and unemployed older workers. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning [that is, a longing] that they suffered at the beginning of the 21st century in the United States. Each aging unemployed worker struggled with it alone. As they made the beds, shopped for groceries … they were afraid to ask even of themselves the silent question -- "Is this all?"

Never before have so many over age 50 needed equitable opportunities to gain and keep productive jobs. Never before has the nation confronted such a potentially large shortfall of qualified workers in strategic industries. Never before has there been a greater need for a thought leader who can inspire a generation to organize against age discrimination, eradicating this stubborn obstacle to full inclusiveness in American society.

If these three forces ever do converge, our collective consciousness will rise again, and the nation will be stronger, fairer and more congruent with its founding ideals. 

 

Follow Brent Green on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BoomerMarketing

Comments

[seawolf77]

I saw these people my whole career. They had no use for computers, never wanted learn them, always talked em down, never so much as got an email address and never,ever surfed the web. I'm supposed to feel bad for these people. Let them ROT!!!!!!

[blizb]

Many are extremely computer literate but due to downsizing of many corporations they are discriminated against by unfair hiring practices.

When filling out applications online as most people of all ages have to do some companies get around the process by asking what year you graduated high school.

So therefore they unfairly get your age and the HR person bypasses the application based on the target age they are looking for. They don't want to pay insurance or retirement for an older worker who probably will stay until retirement opposed to a younger person who looks for new opportunies every 2 to 5 years.

What are you going to do when you may be faced with new unfamiliar technology and are without a job when you are 55 to 65 years old?? You may think that won't happen to you but technology is increasing at a rapid pace and you are highly likely to be a victim of it's affects 20 years from now.

Computers aren't people and many of these older workers are stable and have a great work ethic even without the technical skills. I have technical skills but still have been discriminated against in finding work.

[savagetiger]

"Computers aren't people and many of these older workers are stable and have a great work ethic even without the technical skills."

Yes, and No: It's the efficiency that matters. If you "know the process" but it takes two hours to complete it manually versus 5 minutes to complete it using a computer, as a business owner, I'm going to find someone who could do it on the computer.

The fact is, the older generation no longer defines the workplace, its culture, or "how it works". If you're going to compete in today's workforce, then you need to conform to it NOT vice-versa.

[Brent Green - Huffpost Blogger]

Let's deal with another myth, Seawolf77. Some justify age discrimination against Boomers on the basis of a fallacious belief that Boomers lack computer skills (or lack the learning aptitude to gain them where some specific deficiencies may exist). That notion is ridiculous and just another ramification of ageism.

Most Boomers have been working daily with computers since the mid- to late-1980s, coinciding with the birth of their now-computer literate offspring, known as Millennials. Over 80% of Boomers are regularly online, and the generation is beginning to dominate Facebook and Twitter.

Boomers invented and proliferated many of the digital technologies in use today including the first micro-computer operating system (Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Paul Allen and Microsoft), the first desktop computer with a friendly GUI (Steve Jobs and Apple) and the hypertext mark-up language driving the internet (Tim Berners-Lee). Many Boomers have more advanced computer skills than those who are today masters at texting and social networking. Boomer software engineers are usually the only workers who fully understand legacy software still running huge companies, such as FORTRAN, COBOL and C++.

For those who lack computer skills, say for a company's proprietary software, they can learn quickly with the right training. What Boomers do almost universally possess of value to business, other than decades of experience and the wisdom that goes with it, is the ability to use effective written communications, handle complex social relationships requiring much emotional maturity, and an extraordinary work ethic and company loyalty.

[savagetiger]

Discrimination is indeed wrong, whether its based on age, race, sec, e.g. "They can learn quickly with the right training" is, indeed, true - but the emphasis is on the word *can*. More importantly, are they willing to? (And we're speaking too generally here. Realistically, you have to look at the individual applicant regardless of race, sex, AND age)

As I stated above: The fact is, the older generation no longer defines the workplace, its culture, or "how it works". If you're going to compete in today's workforce, then you need to conform to it NOT vice-versa.

[BocaMom]

Unfortunately, it's just plain age discrimination. The terrible economy is giving big business an excuse to let go of older workers and hire younger workers for less, so they can give themselves fatter bonuses. It's disgusting. I see it happening all around and the government is doing nothing about it because these companies are giving money to get the crooked politicians re-elected.

[ThePeacemakers]

Weird and wrong that there are plenty of qualified workers who are older, but certain biznesses won't hire them....

Boomer gen should relish this challenge. They are some of the biggest culprits (just some) who sold us the "worshipping of youth" ideals...

[bobdcat]

Recently my employer held diversity seminars for management. On the wall around the room were posters outlining needs of and perceptions about various groups of workers: female, black, hispanic, handicapped, gen-X, gen-Y, GBLT, etc., but nowhere was there any mention of older workers.

[TheLastThylacine]

As a working boomer who plans to go beyond retirement age, I find that the employers needs us as much as we needs them. We are the last generation with 1) a work ethic, and 2) who know how to do anything. The incompetence of the younger generations is amazing, and it makes one wonder what is going on in our colleges and universities.

[savagetiger]

You're kidding, right? Care to tell me how program in .NET, or just turn the computer on?

[PlaceboStudman]

Just once I'd like to see a commentary similar to this concerning the equally tragic effects of disability discrimination.

Just sayin'