{"id":100,"date":"2020-02-03T08:32:10","date_gmt":"2020-02-03T08:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/upgrade-stop\/?p=100"},"modified":"2020-08-21T14:29:44","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T13:29:44","slug":"how-ageist-is-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/how-ageist-is-britain\/","title":{"rendered":"How ageist is Britain?"},"content":{"rendered":"

More about Professor Dominic Abrams<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Full text of report<\/a><\/p>\n

About<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

During the last three decades, several initiatives have been put in place to ensure equality for all. For example, the Equality Act offers legal protection against discrimination on the basis of race, gender, disability, religion, sexual orientation, pregnancy and marriage\/civil partnership and age.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

‘However, <\/span>our lives are defined by ageing: the ages at which we can learn to drive, vote, have sex, buy a house or retire, get a pension, travel by bus for free. More subtle are the implicit boundaries that curtail our lives: the \u201csafe\u201d age to have children, the \u201cexperience\u201d needed to fill the boss\u2019s role, the physical strength needed for some jobs. Society is continually making judgements about when you are old enough for something \u2013 and when you are too old. But if we allow ageism to flourish unchallenged it means that \u201ctoo old\u201d can lead to discrimination’<\/span>\u00a0(Abrams, 2005, p.2)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the first national representative sample survey, Professor Abrams conducted detailed interviews with 1,843 people with questions developed through a mixture of thorough literature review and evaluation, workshop development, qualitative testing and quantitative validation.<\/p>\n

This findings have important implications for public bodies that promote equality, legal enforcers, marketers, advertisers and lay people.<\/p>\n


\n<\/span>Research objectives<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

The primary objectives<\/strong> were:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022To create a comprehensive review of research on ageism prejudice.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022To conduct the first national representative sample survey (GB) on attitudes to ageing.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022To examine ways in which age discrimination can be improved.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Programme and methodology\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u2022A thorough literature review and evaluation\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022Workshop development\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022Survey <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Findings\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u2022More people (29%) reported suffering age discrimination than any other form\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022From age 55 onwards people were nearly twice as likely to have experienced age prejudice than as any other form of discrimination\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Nearly 30% of people believed there is more prejudice against the old than five years ago, and that this will continue to get worse\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 One third of people thought that the demographic shift towards an older society would make life worse in terms of standards of living, security, health, jobs\u00a0<\/span>and education\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022One in three respondents say the over 70s are viewed as incompetent and incapable<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Impact\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u2022This project offer<\/span>s<\/span> new and important information<\/span><\/b> on understanding ageism in Britain<\/span>. It is only through the understanding of the workings of ageism that efforts can be made to reduce it.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022This project shows a <\/span>clear pattern of prejudice towards older people in media outlets<\/span><\/b> (e.g., TV, <\/span>advertisments<\/span>). It <\/span>suggests the establishment of firmer legal protection <\/span><\/b>against ageism.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u2022The project offers <\/span>clear guidelines towards the Equality & Human Rights Commission<\/span><\/b> that will help reduce ageism in Britain. These include:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

+ Ensuring that public bodies promote age equality<\/span>
\n<\/span>+ Protection against ageism in the provision of goods and services.<\/span>
\n<\/span>+ A n<\/span>ew<\/span> definition of public authority under the Human Rights Act to protect more vulnerable older people.<\/span>
\n<\/span>+ The Commission should consult not only established partners and experts but also exclude those in work or seeking work in their 50s or 60s.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More about Professor Dominic Abrams Full text of report About During the last three decades, several initiatives have been put in place to ensure equality for all. For example, the Equality Act offers legal protection against discrimination on the basis of race, gender, disability, religion, sexual orientation, pregnancy and marriage\/civil partnership and age.\u00a0\u00a0 ‘However, our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":1081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prejudice-age"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/610"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2280,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/2280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}