Ageism has again reared its ugly head in Britain’s political life, with Labour’s proposed mandatory retirement age for peers, even though this practice was made unlawful 18 years ago. Then the eminent classicist Mary Beard levelled the ageist accusation of ‘job-blocking’ at older academics, echoing the more familiar stigma of ‘bed-blocking’.
While ageism is commonplace in the lives of older people, for example in denying them access to jobs or healthcare, it usually only surfaces publicly at times of acute resource conflicts. Its roots can be traced at least back to the medieval period when, contrary to the romantic myth of the rural village idyll, those no longer fit for work could be exiled.
Forced retirement reduces growth and increases poverty
The 20th century brought more enlightened practices and old age pensions became the cornerstone of the welfare state. This was not a perfect solution by any means because the state pension was set at a level below the poverty line and far below the European average. Consequently, older people were persistently the largest group in poverty until the early 2000s. Receipt of the state pension was also contingent on retirement, which forced many out of work unwillingly.
The EU Equal Treatment Directive outlawed age barrier retirement as a form of age discrimination, which the UK adopted in October 2006, and in 2011 the default retirement age was abolished. This led to a rise in employment among older workers and, between 2010 and 2020, those over 50 represented over half of the UK’s employment growth. Ageism in the labour market did not disappear: older workers remain at greater risk than younger ones of being in precarious forms of employment such as zero hours contracts.
The weaponisation of age
In post-Second World War Britain older workers were treated as a reserve army of labour, encouraged to remain in work when there were labour shortages in the early 1950s, and then, when youth unemployment surged in the 1970s, they were offered financial inducements (by the Job Release Scheme) to retire early.
The first wave of neoliberalism, under Thatcher, brought a direct assault on the welfare state and, because older people are its main beneficiaries, they bore the brunt of the cuts. Even though poverty among pensioners rose rapidly in the 1980s and peaked at over 40% at the end of the decade, and the UK’s state pension was low by EU standards, pension upratings were minimised and Barbara Castle’s State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme was curtailed. This hit women particularly hard because their pensions are generally lower than men’s and, consequently, they are more likely to be poor.
The neoliberal rhetoric used to justify these draconian cuts featured references to the ‘burden’ of old age, on both the economy and future generations. Parallel Reaganomic rhetoric in the US spawned a national campaign, ‘Americans for Generational Equity’, claiming that ‘Greedy Geezers’ were stealing their children’s inheritance. There was no evidence of generational conflict, and the campaign was eventually exposed as a front for a right-wing assault on the welfare state. Echoes of the generational conflict rhetoric have appeared in the UK, albeit in milder forms, such as David Willet’s book The Pinch.
Because ageism was already part of conventional political wisdom it became turbo-charged in a second wave of neoliberalism under Cameron and Osborne’s austerity programme: ‘Grey Vote Holds Country to Ransom’ (Daily Mail, April 22 2010), ‘How the Baby Boomers Stole Their Children’s Future’ (Guardian, 13 March, 2017), ‘It’s Time to Stop Pensioners Hogging the Best Jobs’ (Daily Telegraph, January 12, 2014), and ‘Older People are a Burden on the NHS’ (The Times, January 19, 2016).
Age, I do abhor thee
Then, under Johnson, we saw the cruellest expression of ageism in the extraordinary concentration of Covid-19 deaths among older people – around 90% of those who died were aged 65 and over. It was suggested that deaths among frail older people were not important because they would ‘die anyway’. Short of causing death, ageism can lead to financial insecurity, increase stress, anxiety and depression, undermine self-esteem and, in chronic forms, can cause physical ill-health.
The above headlines and underlying political discourses feed a narrative which portrays older people as unproductive and a burden on society. They are ‘othered’ as a separate and, at best, less economically important group. They are homogenised even though diversity within generations is at least as wide as between them. Gender is a major source of inequity in old age: women over 50 experience more discrimination and wage inequality than both men of the same age and younger women.
In this context it is not surprising that discriminatory language, like ‘job-blocking’, can become acceptable. This reflects the deep-seated nature of ageism in public life and stands in direct contrast to the elevated status that many older people occupy in everyday life, as grandparents and community anchors.
Taking a holistic approach
As well as neoliberalism, ageism is fed by a biological fallacy that physical dependency in old age is inevitable, that the processes of ageing are immutable. In fact, the social and commercial determinants of ageing are much more important than genetics in both life expectancy and healthy life expectancy. This understanding from The New Science of Ageing, reinforces basic human rights in calling for an end to ageism and a more positive political discourse on ageing and old age. This would be founded on a recognition that, while ageing is inevitable, how we age rests heavily on socio-economic factors – our level of deprivation or affluence, the work we do or did, the stresses in our lives (caused, for example, by work, debt and discrimination), our diets, the areas we live in, and the quality of our social relationships.
Adopting a more positive approach to ageing is critical for the success of the new Labour administration, particularly for Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting. On the one hand, economic growth depends on the more productive use of an ageing workforce, but at present, many older workers are too sick or disabled to work. Urgent action is required to extend healthy life expectancy by preventing the common and too readily accepted causes of ill-health as people age.
As Andy Haldane pointed out when he was chief economist at the Bank of England, there are significant economic benefits to improving public health, which he estimated as around £70bn being added to UK GDP for each extra year added to healthy life expectancy. On the other hand, preventable morbidity has overwhelmed the NHS: 70% of hospital admissions are frail older people, yet 75% of new cases of coronary heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes are preventable. It is obvious that healthier people can contribute more effectively to the workforce, reduce healthcare costs and engage more readily in non-economic activities.
Live long and prosper: growing old gracefully
The necessary first steps for Labour are clear: at present no-one is officially responsible for the ageing process because it is lifelong, from cradle to grave, and therefore spans several Whitehall departments. Prevention of what eventually become the multi-morbidities of later life, across the whole life course, must become a major priority, in a cross-departmental approach.
Underpinning this practical step should be a new positive narrative about ageing and old age, starting in schools, with education for the 100-year life. Ageist policies and language should be banned. The House of Lords’ bloated membership problem can be fixed in multiple other ways, including setting time limits on appointments, and thus avoiding ageism.
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