Today’s blog post is excerpted from a Frameworks Communication Toolkit, which contains many wonderful ideas and resources on how to change the conversation about aging in America from a time of decline and deterioration to a time of challenge and opportunity. Also see this recent post Reframing Aging: Growing “Old at Heart” from the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
From griots to gurus to Yoda, our culture abounds in novels, movies, and folklore that celebrate the wisdom and experience of older people. Day to day, however, we haven’t done as good a job in weaving their knowledge and experience into our social fabric. Creating spaces in our communities for older Americans to continue to participate as full members of society is not simply a matter of “listening to your elders.” Instead, it is about living up to our belief in treating all people equally—and that means fostering an environment in which older adults’ contributions are recognized and valued.
Addressing workplace discrimination is one way we can do this. As Americans live longer and healthier lives, many are delaying retirement, staying in the workforce longer, or seeking new opportunities in the job market. And despite research showing that older workers make for better employees—scoring higher in leadership than their younger colleagues and performing well in detail-oriented tasks, writing skills, and problem-solving—they are often forced out of their positions or not hired into roles for which they are highly qualified. Older women may be doubly affected because of people’s assumption that their only experiences are in caregiving and homemaking. As a result, when older men and women are unemployed, they are likely to remain so long term.
Age discrimination deeply affects people’s quality of life and ability to make a living for themselves. Couple that discrimination with a lack of policies that can address the problem, and it’s easy to see how we are pushing older Americans to the margins of our society. That affects us all—not to mention the health and vitality of our communities. Justice requires us to change how our society deals with getting older.
One step toward achieving justice is recognizing how implicit bias affects the way we think about aging. From news coverage of older Americans being scammed out of their life savings, to paternalistic commercials about aging-related products and popular TV characters like Mr. Wilson of Dennis the Menace, our culture routinely bolsters common stereotypes of older people as too vulnerable to handle their own affairs, frail and sick, or “difficult.” As a result, we often make negative judgments about older people based on their age alone. Those unintentional biases have real life implications. The more aware of these biases we become, the less likely we are to act on “snap judgments”—and the more likely we are to treat people fairly, regardless of age.
We know that investing in children and their education is an investment in the future of our communities. Similarly, we need to adjust our policies and systems so that we can better integrate everyone’s energy and experiences into our society throughout the life course. Promoting communities where aging is recognized as an asset and an opportunity – for growth, ingenuity, and creativity—is the smart, and just, thing to do. We are all better off by being inclusive.
