There is a “structural problem” within Government which struggles to think about age and to take the issue of ageism seriously, a hearing on the rights of older people was told.
Leaders of organisations representing older people said the issue came to the fore in the coronavirus pandemic, when people were “emboldened” to publicly express ageist views, the Women and Equalities Committee heard.
>People aged 50 and over are the most likely to volunteer, vote and provide unpaid care, alongside their contributions to the economy as workers and consumers.
>Despite this, one in three people in the UK have experienced ageism.
>— Ageing Better (@Ageing_Better) January 10, 2024
The cross-party committee is considering whether discrimination and ageist stereotyping is preventing older people from participating fully in society and the case being made for an Older People’s Commissioner for England – a role which already exists in Wales and Northern Ireland.
In Scotland a Bill has been proposed to establish an independent commissioner to promote and safeguard the rights and interests of older people.
At Wednesday’s committee hearing in Westminster, Carole Easton, chief executive at the Centre for Ageing Better, said ageism is “hidden in plain sight and embedded” in the UK.
She added: “I think we don’t even notice it when language is used on TV, in pubs, on social media.”
Ms Easton referred to the use of the phrase “bed-blocking” when it comes to the NHS, asking: “Why do we talk about bed-blocking rather than older people trapped in hospital?
“They no more want to be in hospital than we want them to be in hospital. So the very language makes it very negative and very discriminatory.”
She described ageism as “normalised” and “an unseen accepted discrimination”, adding: “It’s the most widespread form of discrimination in the UK.”
The effects can be “hugely damaging”, affecting health, job prospects and the economy, she added, saying stereotypes can sometimes become self-fulfilling prophecies “as they can affect how older people view themselves and their own capabilities and behaviours”.
Committee chairwoman Caroline Nokes shared her own experience of stereotyping in advertising, joking there had been an assumption following a recent birthday that she was now in “Velcro slippers and that’s it”.
She said: “My 50th birthday arrived and there was a deluge of advertising around stairlifts, funeral services, care homes. I was 50.”
Helena Herklots, Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, said there had been “horrific examples of of language” used in the pandemic, citing examples of “people talking about why are we protecting older people who are going to die any way”.
While she did not name Boris Johnson, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry heard as part of its module two investigations that the former prime minister had, according to a note read from the diary of a former private secretary, asked why the economy was being destroyed “for people who will die any way soon”, in the days before the country went into lockdown.
The inquiry also heard that then-chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance had written in his diary that Mr Johnson suggested he believed the coronavirus pandemic was nature’s way of dealing with old people”, as he resisted lockdown measures.
Ms Herklots said: “I think maybe the pandemic emboldened some people with ageist views to come out and say those publicly in a way that they wouldn’t have done before.
“And I think we are still living with the legacy of some of that, which is why the work we’ve been talking about, the work of this committee, is so important because there’s a risk that some of that becomes normalised and therefore we need to almost redouble our efforts on issues of ageism.”
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said her organisation believes there is “a structural problem within Government which in a way is simply reflecting our ageist society in lots of different ways”.
She told MPs: “Our Government struggles, I think, to think about age.
She said if the Government is serious about an issue there might be a commissioner and a minister appointed to look at it, as well as a unit of officials and a written strategy.
She said: “What’s interesting about older people is, in this country, we don’t have any of it – nothing.
“So it’s actually quite hard to have a conversation about older people.”
She said the consequences of that were seen in the pandemic when “there wasn’t anybody in Government, in Whitehall, who really knew enough about what older people’s lives were like, what they needed, and therefore we ended up with some decisions that ultimately we probably all look back on and would regret”.
Yeah well they gave us Brexit and 4 consecutive Tory election victory’s so y’know, cry me a river 👍
“The youth of today”. “The problem with your generation“. “In my day…” “I am not racist, but…” “Young people just want everything handed to them on a plate”.
I think ageism is a serious issue but there is a more pernicious inter generational hatred that goes both ways. The part in the article complaining about stairlift advertising being foisted on the over 50s just made me wonder at the lucky generations before me that can afford two story accommodation. And to cling on to it when they can’t even navigate the stairs between their palatial levels. Bastards.
huh discrimination means calling out racism incompetence sleaze and corruption.. Interesting.
Can’t make this stuff up. The most politically and economically pampered demographic is whinging about discrimination.
Probably because young people are sick of old people voting to make the country a worse place, and comprising a good 80% of the bigotry in the workplace…
>There is a “structural problem” within Government which struggles to think about age and to take the issue of ageism seriously, **a hearing on the rights of older people was told.**
What about the rights of younger people? Y’know. How it’s legal to pay younger people less money for the exact same work? How a number of benefits (such as the ones for housing) have various age categories?
>People aged 50 and over are the most likely to volunteer, vote and provide unpaid care
Perhaps that’s because people aged 50 and over are typically later in their careers and have the time and mental bandwidth to do such things more readily?
>In Scotland a Bill has been proposed to establish an independent commissioner to promote and safeguard the rights and interests of older people.
The country has literally been built and structured around the desires of current ‘older’ people for decades.
>Ms Easton referred to the use of the phrase “bed-blocking” when it comes to the NHS, asking: “Why do we talk about bed-blocking rather than older people trapped in hospital?
Why do we talk about ‘staff shortages and vacancies’ rather than ‘pay shortages and poor working conditions’?
>She said: “My 50th birthday arrived and there was a deluge of advertising around stairlifts, funeral services, care homes. I was 50.”
This isn’t discrimination. Advertising is based on algorithms. People are more likely to click on these adverts when they’re 50+. There’s not a big conspiracy.
>“And I think we are still living with the legacy of some of that, which is why the work we’ve been talking about, the work of this committee, is so important because there’s a risk that some of that becomes normalised and therefore we need to almost redouble our efforts on issues of ageism.”
Or perhaps young people are beginning to resent older people (as a demographic, not individually) because they repeatedly vote solely in their own interest with no regard for the viability or sustainability of what they’re voting for as long as they get theirs. While downplaying the severity of the crises that directly impact young peoples quality of life (such as the housing crisis) with such fun narratives as ‘you could afford a house if you didn’t pay for Netflix’. ‘Young people need to stop buying avocado and toast if they want a house’.etc. Then of course we have the biggest ‘generational divide’ vote of the past decade with Brexit. Where after the vote those that supported Brexit (typically older people) told those that didn’t (typically younger people) that their opinions no longer mattered, that they should stop being ‘remoaners’ and not complain about the drastic reduction in their rights across the continent of Europe because ‘Sovereignty’ or something.
Instead of grandstanding about how they feel bad that they’re being advertised velcro slippers, perhaps they should start pushing for policies that benefit the population more universally. Maybe then we’d hear less resentment from the younger generations directed towards the old.
>Helena Herklots, Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, said there had been “horrific examples of of language” used in the pandemic, citing examples of “people talking about why are we protecting older people who are going to die any way”.
We genuinely couldn’t have had a worse person in charge of the country.
As a 30 year old I’ve never been comfortable with the whole “OK boomer” stuff because it’s just reducing a demographic to a cheap stereotype.
However, this quote is a really bad argument:
*”People aged 50 and over are the most likely to volunteer, vote and provide unpaid care, alongside their contributions to the economy as workers and consumers.”*
Over 50s are the wealthiest demographic in the UK and many of them are retired so they have a lot of free time. Of course they’re more likely to volunteer, provide unpaid care etc. It’s not that younger people are less interested or willing to do this stuff, it’s that younger people don’t have the financial resources or time to do it.
Utter nonsense.
>People aged 50 and over are the most likely to volunteer
People aged 50 and over are the most likely to have time on their hands.
>vote
You don’t need to be a political scientist to understand why young people are more likely to be disillusioned with voting.
>provide unpaid care
They’re also the most likely to receive unpaid care. Are we to believe that all the over 50s were providing unpaid care in their youths while raising children of their own? I certainly imagine that the under 50s of today are providing far more *paid* care than their predecessors in the form of taxation to subsidise the elderly.
>alongside their contributions to the economy as workers and consumers.
Are we netting this off against their extraction of value in the form of state benefits they didn’t fund and hoarding of wealth and housing?
Yeah old people have eaten from the table their whole lives proceeded to knock the table over, set it ablaze and piss on the ashes.
Post about ageism. Half the comments are discriminating against older people…
Yea that’s right I’m ageist, and i would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for those meddling kids!
The Boomers were born into the post-War social democratic settlement and benefited from successive governments who sought to raise the living standards of society as a whole. Then as soon as they came of age, they voted Thatcher into office and ushered in 40 years of neoliberalism, gleefully watching as the social fabric was torn apart, and happily let society burn to the ground so that they could buy a council house at a bargain basement price and watch its value balloon.
They had everything handed to them on a plate, and greedily hogged it all, determined that subsequent generations would be denied even their crumbs and scraps. In their dotage, they became increasingly spiteful, becoming an immovable voting block that ensured only the most myopic and dysfunctional administrations could assume power, and hold it only by catering for their whims alone.
Brexit was their last hurrah; the final, spiteful “fuck you!” to the children and grandchildren whose living standards they are determined to drive into the ground.
And now you wonder why agism is on the rise?
It’s a bit rich for babyboomers to start complaining about how the old are treated, given that they were the ones who started treating older people badly in the first place.
Their attitudes in the 60s 70s and 80s were seen in a wide spread of comedy and drama programmes, and they were the cohort who were happy to shove their parents into old peoples homes against their parents’ will (and subsequently benefiting from their parents’ property).
Gen X and younger learned from their example. Typical of them to complain about reaping what they sowed.
Why is ageism only ever defined as discrimination against old people?
These comments are absolutely insane. People are acting like the second you hit 50 you automatically become a middle class Tory voting homeowner with a holiday home in Cornwall.
Like the millions of working class people who have suffered for decades in this country just don’t go on to age and have to navigate a society that cares about them less and less as they become less able to work, less fuckable and more dependant. People who have struggled their entire lives will get to old age and have to face their declining health, declining ability to generate income and, increasingly, still maintaining significant debt as their friends and family die and their world gets smaller every year.
But no, keep shouting “OK Boomer” and proving the point of the bloody article.
This might be one of my more controversial opinions. But if two cvs match exactly for a entry-mid level techish or tech adjacent role, I’m very unlikely to hire someone over 50.
Most people in that demographic are more likely to be rude, less likely to ask for help and less likely to use approved channels of communication and escalation. That’s just my experience but it’s been true every single time. They’re more difficult to train, they need more hand holding and they don’t pay attention.
This article is about ageism against older people, and all the comments here are just either denying that it exists, or implying they deserve it, or what aboutisms regarding ageism against younger people- it kinda just proves the point really
I always have to wonder, why is Gen X never seems to part of the discussion?
Baby boomers are mostly the parents of Gen X, I suppose some of the Greatest Generation will be too.
Is this a misuse of language? As in putting Boomer’s and Xer’s in the same bracket or discounting then to the point they are the same thing? Obviously the parents of millennials will be a mix of Boom and X. Definitely the parents of Gen Y and Gen Z, no?
Is it their own fault for standing on the sidelines and making sarcastic comments and refusing to engage whilst the Boomer and Greats got on with doing what they did.
I am on the edge of Gen X. I didn’t benefit from anything people say all the Boomer’s did, in fact neither did my Boomer Parents. They had to borrow money from my Nan and mortgage themselves to the hilt to get a small house after they lost their tythe house when my dad retired. My mum would be still paying that mortgage had it not been for my Dad dying while he was still at work.
I think the sweeping generalisations I have read here are a massive part of the problem. All boomers vote Tory and own a huge cheap house, well no, there were poor, disenfranchised and desperate people throughout history who were marginalised and what year they were born has nothing to do with it.
I could go on, but I am bored and want to listen to some Nine Inch Nails and play on my Mega Drive now.
It cuts both ways.
Non-educational public services aimed at youth haven’t just been cut back, they’ve been cut entirely. Workplaces aren’t interested in training, renting requires deposits that are beyond inaccessible to young people without the Bank (or at least spare bedroom) of Mum and Dad, recreational facilities are sat in disrepair or being removed, youth are considered actively suspicious in groups larger than two, the minimum wage is lower for under 25s, car insurance is totally insane for the same age group, are watching their access to a (triply locked – during a time of claimed public spending crisis) state pension wither away before their very eyes, are burdened with additional costs and debts from education that those over 50 almost certainly never had.
At the same time, older people are often overlooked in hiring, are often victimised for both violent and financial crime, are often neglected by family as needs become more complex (leading to bed blocking), as a cohort are much more at risk of serious consequences from fuel poverty, and are the least able to deal with a rapidly changing world. Plus, most of them are not rich, the cohort is incredibly wealthy in an unbelievably unbalanced and inequality-driving way, but there is plenty of inequality within the cohort and most of them are not particularly wealthy.
Dealing with ageism will involve a lot of redistribution and provision of public services. Almost like, at a minimum, creating the social democratic environment the over 70s grew up in and the over 50s benefitted directly from.
This goes both ways. I am a young person and I’ve been a bit irked by the dismissive attitude some of my peers have had towards the older generations previously.
Drop the triple lock and then we can talk about it.
Yes they’re right there is huge discrimination against the you-oh! It’s claiming the elderly are the victims! Hahahahaha
I almost don’t have a problem with it. Young people are constantly ageist to older and older are to younger. Evens itself out.
25 comments
(Article)
—
There is a “structural problem” within Government which struggles to think about age and to take the issue of ageism seriously, a hearing on the rights of older people was told.
Leaders of organisations representing older people said the issue came to the fore in the coronavirus pandemic, when people were “emboldened” to publicly express ageist views, the Women and Equalities Committee heard.
>People aged 50 and over are the most likely to volunteer, vote and provide unpaid care, alongside their contributions to the economy as workers and consumers.
>Despite this, one in three people in the UK have experienced ageism.
>Find out more: https://t.co/AbYNELnWha pic.twitter.com/jLHruFFC74
>— Ageing Better (@Ageing_Better) January 10, 2024
The cross-party committee is considering whether discrimination and ageist stereotyping is preventing older people from participating fully in society and the case being made for an Older People’s Commissioner for England – a role which already exists in Wales and Northern Ireland.
In Scotland a Bill has been proposed to establish an independent commissioner to promote and safeguard the rights and interests of older people.
At Wednesday’s committee hearing in Westminster, Carole Easton, chief executive at the Centre for Ageing Better, said ageism is “hidden in plain sight and embedded” in the UK.
She added: “I think we don’t even notice it when language is used on TV, in pubs, on social media.”
Ms Easton referred to the use of the phrase “bed-blocking” when it comes to the NHS, asking: “Why do we talk about bed-blocking rather than older people trapped in hospital?
“They no more want to be in hospital than we want them to be in hospital. So the very language makes it very negative and very discriminatory.”
She described ageism as “normalised” and “an unseen accepted discrimination”, adding: “It’s the most widespread form of discrimination in the UK.”
The effects can be “hugely damaging”, affecting health, job prospects and the economy, she added, saying stereotypes can sometimes become self-fulfilling prophecies “as they can affect how older people view themselves and their own capabilities and behaviours”.
Committee chairwoman Caroline Nokes shared her own experience of stereotyping in advertising, joking there had been an assumption following a recent birthday that she was now in “Velcro slippers and that’s it”.
She said: “My 50th birthday arrived and there was a deluge of advertising around stairlifts, funeral services, care homes. I was 50.”
Helena Herklots, Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, said there had been “horrific examples of of language” used in the pandemic, citing examples of “people talking about why are we protecting older people who are going to die any way”.
While she did not name Boris Johnson, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry heard as part of its module two investigations that the former prime minister had, according to a note read from the diary of a former private secretary, asked why the economy was being destroyed “for people who will die any way soon”, in the days before the country went into lockdown.
The inquiry also heard that then-chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance had written in his diary that Mr Johnson suggested he believed the coronavirus pandemic was nature’s way of dealing with old people”, as he resisted lockdown measures.
Ms Herklots said: “I think maybe the pandemic emboldened some people with ageist views to come out and say those publicly in a way that they wouldn’t have done before.
“And I think we are still living with the legacy of some of that, which is why the work we’ve been talking about, the work of this committee, is so important because there’s a risk that some of that becomes normalised and therefore we need to almost redouble our efforts on issues of ageism.”
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said her organisation believes there is “a structural problem within Government which in a way is simply reflecting our ageist society in lots of different ways”.
She told MPs: “Our Government struggles, I think, to think about age.
She said if the Government is serious about an issue there might be a commissioner and a minister appointed to look at it, as well as a unit of officials and a written strategy.
She said: “What’s interesting about older people is, in this country, we don’t have any of it – nothing.
“So it’s actually quite hard to have a conversation about older people.”
She said the consequences of that were seen in the pandemic when “there wasn’t anybody in Government, in Whitehall, who really knew enough about what older people’s lives were like, what they needed, and therefore we ended up with some decisions that ultimately we probably all look back on and would regret”.
Yeah well they gave us Brexit and 4 consecutive Tory election victory’s so y’know, cry me a river 👍
“The youth of today”. “The problem with your generation“. “In my day…” “I am not racist, but…” “Young people just want everything handed to them on a plate”.
I think ageism is a serious issue but there is a more pernicious inter generational hatred that goes both ways. The part in the article complaining about stairlift advertising being foisted on the over 50s just made me wonder at the lucky generations before me that can afford two story accommodation. And to cling on to it when they can’t even navigate the stairs between their palatial levels. Bastards.
huh discrimination means calling out racism incompetence sleaze and corruption.. Interesting.
Can’t make this stuff up. The most politically and economically pampered demographic is whinging about discrimination.
Probably because young people are sick of old people voting to make the country a worse place, and comprising a good 80% of the bigotry in the workplace…
>There is a “structural problem” within Government which struggles to think about age and to take the issue of ageism seriously, **a hearing on the rights of older people was told.**
What about the rights of younger people? Y’know. How it’s legal to pay younger people less money for the exact same work? How a number of benefits (such as the ones for housing) have various age categories?
>People aged 50 and over are the most likely to volunteer, vote and provide unpaid care
Perhaps that’s because people aged 50 and over are typically later in their careers and have the time and mental bandwidth to do such things more readily?
>In Scotland a Bill has been proposed to establish an independent commissioner to promote and safeguard the rights and interests of older people.
The country has literally been built and structured around the desires of current ‘older’ people for decades.
>Ms Easton referred to the use of the phrase “bed-blocking” when it comes to the NHS, asking: “Why do we talk about bed-blocking rather than older people trapped in hospital?
Why do we talk about ‘staff shortages and vacancies’ rather than ‘pay shortages and poor working conditions’?
>She said: “My 50th birthday arrived and there was a deluge of advertising around stairlifts, funeral services, care homes. I was 50.”
This isn’t discrimination. Advertising is based on algorithms. People are more likely to click on these adverts when they’re 50+. There’s not a big conspiracy.
>“And I think we are still living with the legacy of some of that, which is why the work we’ve been talking about, the work of this committee, is so important because there’s a risk that some of that becomes normalised and therefore we need to almost redouble our efforts on issues of ageism.”
Or perhaps young people are beginning to resent older people (as a demographic, not individually) because they repeatedly vote solely in their own interest with no regard for the viability or sustainability of what they’re voting for as long as they get theirs. While downplaying the severity of the crises that directly impact young peoples quality of life (such as the housing crisis) with such fun narratives as ‘you could afford a house if you didn’t pay for Netflix’. ‘Young people need to stop buying avocado and toast if they want a house’.etc. Then of course we have the biggest ‘generational divide’ vote of the past decade with Brexit. Where after the vote those that supported Brexit (typically older people) told those that didn’t (typically younger people) that their opinions no longer mattered, that they should stop being ‘remoaners’ and not complain about the drastic reduction in their rights across the continent of Europe because ‘Sovereignty’ or something.
Instead of grandstanding about how they feel bad that they’re being advertised velcro slippers, perhaps they should start pushing for policies that benefit the population more universally. Maybe then we’d hear less resentment from the younger generations directed towards the old.
>Helena Herklots, Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, said there had been “horrific examples of of language” used in the pandemic, citing examples of “people talking about why are we protecting older people who are going to die any way”.
We genuinely couldn’t have had a worse person in charge of the country.
As a 30 year old I’ve never been comfortable with the whole “OK boomer” stuff because it’s just reducing a demographic to a cheap stereotype.
However, this quote is a really bad argument:
*”People aged 50 and over are the most likely to volunteer, vote and provide unpaid care, alongside their contributions to the economy as workers and consumers.”*
Over 50s are the wealthiest demographic in the UK and many of them are retired so they have a lot of free time. Of course they’re more likely to volunteer, provide unpaid care etc. It’s not that younger people are less interested or willing to do this stuff, it’s that younger people don’t have the financial resources or time to do it.
Utter nonsense.
>People aged 50 and over are the most likely to volunteer
People aged 50 and over are the most likely to have time on their hands.
>vote
You don’t need to be a political scientist to understand why young people are more likely to be disillusioned with voting.
>provide unpaid care
They’re also the most likely to receive unpaid care. Are we to believe that all the over 50s were providing unpaid care in their youths while raising children of their own? I certainly imagine that the under 50s of today are providing far more *paid* care than their predecessors in the form of taxation to subsidise the elderly.
>alongside their contributions to the economy as workers and consumers.
Are we netting this off against their extraction of value in the form of state benefits they didn’t fund and hoarding of wealth and housing?
Yeah old people have eaten from the table their whole lives proceeded to knock the table over, set it ablaze and piss on the ashes.
Post about ageism. Half the comments are discriminating against older people…
Yea that’s right I’m ageist, and i would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for those meddling kids!
The Boomers were born into the post-War social democratic settlement and benefited from successive governments who sought to raise the living standards of society as a whole. Then as soon as they came of age, they voted Thatcher into office and ushered in 40 years of neoliberalism, gleefully watching as the social fabric was torn apart, and happily let society burn to the ground so that they could buy a council house at a bargain basement price and watch its value balloon.
They had everything handed to them on a plate, and greedily hogged it all, determined that subsequent generations would be denied even their crumbs and scraps. In their dotage, they became increasingly spiteful, becoming an immovable voting block that ensured only the most myopic and dysfunctional administrations could assume power, and hold it only by catering for their whims alone.
Brexit was their last hurrah; the final, spiteful “fuck you!” to the children and grandchildren whose living standards they are determined to drive into the ground.
And now you wonder why agism is on the rise?
It’s a bit rich for babyboomers to start complaining about how the old are treated, given that they were the ones who started treating older people badly in the first place.
Their attitudes in the 60s 70s and 80s were seen in a wide spread of comedy and drama programmes, and they were the cohort who were happy to shove their parents into old peoples homes against their parents’ will (and subsequently benefiting from their parents’ property).
Gen X and younger learned from their example. Typical of them to complain about reaping what they sowed.
Why is ageism only ever defined as discrimination against old people?
These comments are absolutely insane. People are acting like the second you hit 50 you automatically become a middle class Tory voting homeowner with a holiday home in Cornwall.
Like the millions of working class people who have suffered for decades in this country just don’t go on to age and have to navigate a society that cares about them less and less as they become less able to work, less fuckable and more dependant. People who have struggled their entire lives will get to old age and have to face their declining health, declining ability to generate income and, increasingly, still maintaining significant debt as their friends and family die and their world gets smaller every year.
But no, keep shouting “OK Boomer” and proving the point of the bloody article.
This might be one of my more controversial opinions. But if two cvs match exactly for a entry-mid level techish or tech adjacent role, I’m very unlikely to hire someone over 50.
Most people in that demographic are more likely to be rude, less likely to ask for help and less likely to use approved channels of communication and escalation. That’s just my experience but it’s been true every single time. They’re more difficult to train, they need more hand holding and they don’t pay attention.
This article is about ageism against older people, and all the comments here are just either denying that it exists, or implying they deserve it, or what aboutisms regarding ageism against younger people- it kinda just proves the point really
I always have to wonder, why is Gen X never seems to part of the discussion?
Baby boomers are mostly the parents of Gen X, I suppose some of the Greatest Generation will be too.
Is this a misuse of language? As in putting Boomer’s and Xer’s in the same bracket or discounting then to the point they are the same thing? Obviously the parents of millennials will be a mix of Boom and X. Definitely the parents of Gen Y and Gen Z, no?
Is it their own fault for standing on the sidelines and making sarcastic comments and refusing to engage whilst the Boomer and Greats got on with doing what they did.
I am on the edge of Gen X. I didn’t benefit from anything people say all the Boomer’s did, in fact neither did my Boomer Parents. They had to borrow money from my Nan and mortgage themselves to the hilt to get a small house after they lost their tythe house when my dad retired. My mum would be still paying that mortgage had it not been for my Dad dying while he was still at work.
I think the sweeping generalisations I have read here are a massive part of the problem. All boomers vote Tory and own a huge cheap house, well no, there were poor, disenfranchised and desperate people throughout history who were marginalised and what year they were born has nothing to do with it.
I could go on, but I am bored and want to listen to some Nine Inch Nails and play on my Mega Drive now.
It cuts both ways.
Non-educational public services aimed at youth haven’t just been cut back, they’ve been cut entirely. Workplaces aren’t interested in training, renting requires deposits that are beyond inaccessible to young people without the Bank (or at least spare bedroom) of Mum and Dad, recreational facilities are sat in disrepair or being removed, youth are considered actively suspicious in groups larger than two, the minimum wage is lower for under 25s, car insurance is totally insane for the same age group, are watching their access to a (triply locked – during a time of claimed public spending crisis) state pension wither away before their very eyes, are burdened with additional costs and debts from education that those over 50 almost certainly never had.
At the same time, older people are often overlooked in hiring, are often victimised for both violent and financial crime, are often neglected by family as needs become more complex (leading to bed blocking), as a cohort are much more at risk of serious consequences from fuel poverty, and are the least able to deal with a rapidly changing world. Plus, most of them are not rich, the cohort is incredibly wealthy in an unbelievably unbalanced and inequality-driving way, but there is plenty of inequality within the cohort and most of them are not particularly wealthy.
Dealing with ageism will involve a lot of redistribution and provision of public services. Almost like, at a minimum, creating the social democratic environment the over 70s grew up in and the over 50s benefitted directly from.
This goes both ways. I am a young person and I’ve been a bit irked by the dismissive attitude some of my peers have had towards the older generations previously.
Drop the triple lock and then we can talk about it.
Yes they’re right there is huge discrimination against the you-oh! It’s claiming the elderly are the victims! Hahahahaha
I almost don’t have a problem with it. Young people are constantly ageist to older and older are to younger. Evens itself out.