As western societies age at a rapid pace, any kind of bias against older people is likely to have severe consequences. The scale of the challenge was emphasized by a study from Yale School of Public Health, which estimated that the cost of ageism could reach up to $63 billion, just in terms of health costs in the United States alone.

What is equally clear, however, is that age doesn’t affect us all equally, at least in terms of how others perceive us. For instance, research from Berkeley-Haas shows that evaluations of male professors appear pretty consistent as they age, but that isn’t the case with female professors, whose assessments peak in their 30s before hitting rock bottom by their mid to late 40s.

Less warmth

Interestingly, this was less a consequence of a fall in their ability but lower levels of perceived warmth, which causes people to view them more harshly. This is important, as, in leadership conversations, women are often expected to display a combination of competence and warmth due to gendered societal expectations of them.

If they’re unable to display this potent mix, they can often face negative career consequences. Research from the University of Michigan explores how this affects women and what they can do about it. The researchers examined various first-person accounts of female directors on the boards of a number of publicly traded companies.

Some participants used so-called warmth-based tactics, such as asking and connecting, in order to diversify conversations, whereas others used more competence-based tactics, such as asserting and qualifying to amplify their expertise. Others used a combination of the two approaches.

“A troubling outcome of our work is that women must never stop adapting to gendered expectations,” the authors explain. “This reality might fuel women’s resistance to taking on advisory positions and explain the disproportionate levels of burnout that women experience from having to regulate their behavior constantly. This may manifest as higher turnover among women in advisory positions, which could signal women ‘opting out’ of leadership opportunities.

Unfair stereotypes

So it’s clear that women are expected to be warmer than men, and are judged harshly if they don’t meet these expectations. This is likely to be a legacy of historical stereotypes whereby women were responsible for child-rearing while men worked.

The Berkeley-Haas team believes that traditionally we have viewed warmth as something that increases with age, but their findings show that this isn’t the case for women. As a result, while women were perceived as more competent as they got older, they were viewed as less warm, which undermined their ratings as a whole.

This was further confirmed in a second study, with middle-aged men rated higher on warmth than younger men, but middle-aged women enjoyed no such bounce.

“In these circumstances, women were not perceived as less warm in an absolute sense, but they’re still being perceived as less warm compared to men,” the researchers explain. “So anytime they are being considered in juxtaposition to men at that age group, they may be at a disadvantage.”

Personality issues

When the researchers examined the issue in more depth, they found that the feedback on female professors saw a reduced number of comments about their niceness or helpfulness. What’s more, as their ratings declined, this coincided with a rise in complaints about the personality of the professors.

The results underline the difficulties women face in trying to rise up the ranks, as their age is likely to work against them as they do so as they will be perceived as less able to fulfill stereotypical prescriptions.

“There seems to be something about the very nature of career progression that seems to lead people to perceive women as less warm and therefore less likable as their agency increases,” the researchers explain.

There are clearly systemic challenges to overcome if women are to make progress in organizations, especially at the board level, where expectations are so often gendered. After all, it’s hardly a solution that women need to try extra hard to appear warm and friendly as they get older, especially as the studies already highlight the narrower band of seemingly acceptable behaviors already.

Instead, it’s important that organizations are more aware of the many biases that affect women as they get older, and how these biases can impact how women are perceived in the workplace.

“We need to create systems and standardization for how we discuss and evaluate candidates,” the researchers conclude, “and either exclude feedback on personality, or make sure it is considered equally for men.”