The virtues of older workers are increasingly clear, but the appreciation of the value they bring does not always translate into reduced discrimination in the workplace.  New research from the University of Buffalo finds that even with age discrimination legislation in place, older women still suffer discrimination in the workplace, and this is creating significant problems, both in terms of the talent available to organizations, and from a societal perspective.

“We expect to see a continued decline in the ratio of workers to retired individuals in the near future as the population ages,” the researchers explain. “This increase in dependency ratio poses a serious Social Security solvency issue. Employing older women who want to continue working is one way to influence that ratio.”

The research focuses particularly on the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (Title VII) as part of a collection of state and federal laws that are designed to provide equal opportunities at work, but the researchers highlight how poorly the laws tend to work together, with courts typically not allowing them to be combined in a single case.  Instead, actions are typically one of discrimination, which often fails to cover the kind of circumstances faced by older women, or intersectional discrimination, which covers a wider range of demographic characteristics that underpin discrimination at work.

Unequal protection

The study builds upon previous work that suggests that the laws do a better job at protecting male workers, with previous research also suggesting that older women do suffer from differential treatment at work.

“These theories could explain why employers may demonstrate adverse treatment against older women that may be different from older men,” the researchers explain.

The researchers tested their hypothesis that the current legislation is ineffective by exploring two identification strategies that look at the effect of the laws on older men and older women.

“The evidence indicated that both state age discrimination laws and the ADEA improved the labor market outcomes for older men, but had a far less favorable effect on older women,” they continue. “In some cases, I found that age discrimination laws did not improve the labor market outcomes for older women at all.”

The authors believe that their findings provide a strong case for a new protective class of workers specifically for older women, due in large part to the ineffectiveness of existing age discrimination laws for older women in the workplace today.