Age discrimination in the workplace

Age discrimination in the workplace is defined by differential behaviour exhibited towards an employee on the basis of their chronological age. While age discrimination can be directed towards workers of all ages, in the context of older workers, age discrimination includes preferential treatment towards younger employees in terms of job selection, promotion, personal and professional development, forced redundancies and performance reviews (Griffin et al. 2017). Informally, employees can also experience discrimination at work through the expression of ageist attitudes, derisive language and social isolation (Giles and Gasiorek 2011). Research often makes the important distinction between actual discrimination from perceived discrimination; the latter referring to an employee’s subjective perception of having been a recipient of discriminatory behaviour (Griffin et al. 2016).