Age Discrimination in Employment

Introduction

Many experts on old age say negative views of the elderly are more common in the U.S. than in other countries. They attribute this situation to traditional American ideals that stress youthful independence and vigor. "It was the young, after all, who left Europe and Africa for America, who went west on the wagon trails," writes Betty Friedan, author of The Fountain of Age (1993). Indeed, historians such as David Hackett Fischer and R. L. Rapson say a "cult of youth" was born in the U.S. as Americans--most of them relatively young--explored the frontier. Young people carried out much of the work involved in this expansion and settlement period, historians say. Simultaneously, older Americans began to be viewed as somewhat irrelevant (Armour, 5 - 20).

In his book Growing Old in America (1977), Fischer argues that sentiments such as Rubin's served to strengthen the cult of youth in the U.S. in the 1960s, while stigmatizing old age more than ever before. He and others assert that the Vietnam War-era youth movement has today left a legacy of older Americans who refuse to accept their age. For example, in the 1980s, the number of wrinkle-removing face lifts (or "rhytidectomies") performed per year increased to two million, from 60,000 in the 1960s. The fact that aging people would take such drastic measures to make themselves appear younger, some observers say, reflects the unhealthy attitude with which Americans view a natural process (Bandon, 15 - 36).

Retirement and the ADEA

Older Americans report that they are the victims of discrimination in numerous circumstances. For example, some senior citizens say traffic police stop them on roads and highways more often than they do younger people. These senior citizens say the police are motivated by the stereotype that old people are poor drivers (Dym, 47 - 80).

Some medical experts argue that it is justifiable to restrict some health care for the elderly in light of the nation's burgeoning elderly population. According to Daniel Callahan, director of the Hastings Center, which monitors ethical issues in medicine, 30% of the U.S. health budget is currently spent on the elderly. That proportion is expected to rise to 50% or more during the next 10 to 20 years, he says, because of the growing elderly population and escalating health care costs. Callahan argues that some of those funds should be earmarked to ensure the health of younger people, who in most cases will live longer and contribute more to society than will people over 65. "Every young person should have an opportunity to become an old person," he says, "and it is only fair to limit assistance to those already old to make that possible--the elderly already have that which the young lack" (Grimsley, 26 - 70).

But by far the most frequent complaints of bias against the aged have related to the world of work. In 1967, Congress passed the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), which prevents employers from establishing personnel policies that discriminate on the basis of ...