Ageism is a Two-Way Street

Ageism is discrimination against individuals based on their age. The World Health Organization defines it via such emotions as thoughts and feelings and, in private life, it seems like invisibility.

Younger people think they are being ignored despite having interesting ideas. Older people feel obsolete while knowing they still possess plenty of good ideas and an excellent work ethic.

The two-way nature of ageism creates a unique friction in our personal interactions. In private life, what is known as downward ageism can seem like a protective exclusion. This can happen when offspring take over their parent’s finances or healthcare without consultation, implying that age has automatically eroded the parent’s judgment. When a grandparent is relegated to babysitting duties but left out of the family’s intellectual discussions this can create a sense of sorrow and the loss of self-worth.

Conversely, upward ageism can frustrate the young in their search for identity. For example the 22-year-old still living at home who is treated as a permanent adolescent by parents who ignore their offsprings’ interests and concerns. The too frequently used, “When I was your age…” is rarely helpful.

In the family home, the dinner table can easily become an area of conflict. The older generation becomes defensive, while the younger generation retreats into a sense of digital isolation. Both feel ignored and useless.

Governments are at last beginning to recognise that these personal impacts have a cost at the national level and are taking steps to address the issue.

In Australia the Age Discrimination Act focuses on intergenerational fairness, recognising perhaps that, if young people can’t afford homes and older people are unable to find work, family units are at risk of collapse.

In the United Kingdom the Equality Act emphasises injury to feelings, underlining the psychological pain caused by ageist exclusion.

In the United States the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which is mainly a workplace tool aimed only at those over 40, leaves younger individuals and those in non-professional private spheres with less protection.

Recent data suggests that these personal tensions are increasing in western countries. Foe example, in Australia, the loneliness epidemic among both the very young and the very old is at an all-time high, fuelled by a culture that increasingly separates us by age-specific housing and social circles.

In the UK, the “cost of living” crisis has generated resentment: younger generations blame the older property-rich sector for their lack of a future, while older people feel left out and ignored after a long and successful career.

In the USA, political polarisation has weaponised age, making age-appropriateness a central, often toxic, theme in the private social sphere.

What is the answer? Breaking the two-way street of ageism requires looking past numerical age to see the person beneath. It requires intergenerational curiosity perhaps starting by asking a younger person for their perspective on the future and an older person for their perspective on the past.