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6 Age Discrimination, One Source of Inequality
Pages 117-140

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From page 117...
... Analyses of direct and indirect evidence, and especially audit studies of job applications, show that stereotypes about older workers affect labor-market demand for their work, constraining their work opportunities as they age. This discussion paves the way to the next chapter, which examines age-related labor market supply and demand.
From page 118...
... . The evidence for ageism, reviewed here, includes perceivers' explicit and implicit attitudes, cognitive beliefs and stereotypes, and emotional prejudices about older workers, as well as older workers' own reports of behavioral discrimination.
From page 119...
... Perceived Age Discrimination Selective Incivility People perceive unusual, ambiguous, exclusionary behavior as potential discrimination. Links to Well-Being and Exit Decisions Stereotype Embodiment Targets internalize others' stereotypes, tending to confirm.
From page 120...
... 120 UNDERSTANDING THE AGING WORKFORCE FIGURE 6-1  Change and predicted change in implicit and explicit attitudes from 2007 to 2020.
From page 121...
... One conclusion for research follows: Whether and when the original, unfiltered attitude or the newer, socially desirable, revised attitude guides age-related workplace behavior, including discrimination, remains an empirical question. But measurement is not straightforward and requires development.
From page 122...
... To the extent respondents might want to conceal their ageist bias -- an understudied assumption -- measuring both implicit and explicit responses would be useful. In conclusion: to supplement existing research on explicit attitudes, the impact of implicit ageism on workplace behavior specifically could use rigorous, high-powered investigation.
From page 123...
... for a meta-analysis of 23 countries.  311 are negative (lower ability to learn, less adaptable, less attractive, worse communication skills, less physically able, less productive, worse with technology, less creative, worse memory, hard of hearing, and negative personality)
From page 124...
... , a critic might ask whether these stereotypes about older workers' ability are grounded in evidence. This section explores current evidence of age-related cognitive capacity.
From page 125...
... Moreover, these changes may not have a negative (or positive) impact on actual job performance in older adults (Peng et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2013; Charness and Czaja, 2006)
From page 126...
... Whether and when the original, unfiltered attitude (moderate negativity) or the socially desirable, revised attitude guides age-related workplace behavior, including discrimination, remains an empirical question.
From page 127...
... . Average perceptions of workplace age discrimination from three online samples revealed perceived discrimination overall between 1 and 2, well below the scale neutral point of 3, closer to "never" than at least sometimes.
From page 128...
... Combining the samples suggests a curvilinear relationship between age groups and perceived age discrimination at work. Across these separate samples, a U-shaped distribution of perceived discrimination across the working lifespan was evident, in which young and older workers reported experiences of age discrimination to be more frequent than did middle-aged workers (see Table 6-4; Marchiondo et al., 2016)
From page 129...
... . A meta-analysis of studies conducted throughout the world found 27 that addressed workplace ageism (e.g., perceived hiring and training discrimination)
From page 130...
... suggest that 20 percent of older Black workers report being unfairly dismissed from a job, a rate similar to that reported by older White workers (19%) , and slightly higher than Hispanic workers (15%)
From page 131...
... . Conclusions about Self-reported Experiences of Workplace Age Discrimination Psychometrically validated scales document older workers' reports of discrimination, which covary with job dissatisfaction and poor health, though the evidence establishing causality awaits better designs.
From page 132...
... The expanded definition of job performance used by Ng and Feldman includes 10 factors related to employee actions and behaviors, all of which impact the work context and, therefore, performance measurement (see Table 6-5)
From page 133...
... Second Challenge: Causal Ambiguity Age composition of the labor force has a potential endogeneity problem, making it causally ambiguous as an indicator, due to selection processes (Börch-Supan, 2013)
From page 134...
... Nevertheless, workplace age structure is probably not exogenous (a straightforward predictor) , as noted above.
From page 135...
... AGE DISCRIMINATION IN THE LABOR MARKET FOR OLDER WORKERS As a nation, Americans apparently believe that if older people, specifically those past the traditional retirement age of 65, want to work, discrimination (on any basis) should not prevent them from doing so.
From page 136...
... Direct Evidence of Discrimination: Audit and Correspondence Studies Audit and correspondence studies are the gold standard for inferring discrimination in the labor market (e.g., National Research Council, 2004; Fix and Struyk, 1993)
From page 137...
... What we do not know from this literature, however, is how these stereotypes affect demand for older workers in the actual labor market. A large-scale correspondence study of age discrimination, which provided experimental measures of discrimination across thousands of employers, was combined with a computational linguistics analysis of the text of the job ads from this study (Burn et al., 2020)
From page 138...
... Analyses of direct and indirect evidence, and especially audit studies of job applications, show that stereotypes about older workers affect labor market demand -- paving the way to the next chapter on age-related labor market supply and demand. Research Implications Research agendas need to address how societal expectations about aging workers (e.g., stereotypes)
From page 139...
... Self-reported Experiences of Workplace Age Discrimination and Well-Being Psychometrically validated scales have documented older workers' reports of discrimination, showing that they covary with job dissatisfaction and poor health; however, the evidence of causality awaits better research designs. Longitudinal studies would help; converging reports and data collected in the same workplace would help.


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