Differential Treatment of Older Workers Due to COVID-19: Potential for Ageism and Age Discrimination at Work

This paper examines the implications of employers' current COVID-19 protective workplace attendance policies toward older workers, potentially creating the outcomes of increased numbers of involuntary retirees and the discouraged older worker syndrome among otherwise qualified older workforce participants. How potential ageist assumptions and age discrimination under COVID-19 affect workplace decisions in reflection on the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967) guidelines is discussed. Older workers may remain in the workforce longer than ever before due to having healthier life expectancies. Workplace policies need to be increasingly sensitive to older employees’ rights to sustain their workplace engagement (Cummins, 2014; Cummins, Harootyan, & Kunkel, 2015). The author reviewed current unemployment trends in 2020 and emerging litigation in reflection upon general issues of COVID-19 related age discrimination in the older workers' workplace attendance decisions by employers and the historical framework of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967, with significant amendments in 1978 and 1986). The policy analysis paper presents the implications of employers' COVID-19 protective policies on older workers and how it may affect the “health” of the workplace and older adults and the economy beyond the pandemic. Lastly, strategies to address an "age-friendly" workplace during a pandemic and post-pandemic are discussed.

Differential Treatment of Older Workers Due to COVID-19 Accommodations: Potential Issues of Ageism and Age Discrimination

This paper examines the implications of employers’ current COVID-19 protective workplace attendance policies toward older workers, potentially creating the outcomes of increased numbers of involuntary retirees and the discouraged older worker syndrome among otherwise qualified older workforce participants. How potential ageist assumptions and age discrimination under COVID-19 affect workplace decisions in reflection on the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967) guidelines is discussed. Older workers may remain in the workforce longer than ever before due to having extended life expectancies. Workplace policies need to be increasingly sensitive to older employees’ rights to sustain their workplace engagement (Cummins, 2014; Cummins, Harootyan, & Kunkel, 2015). The author reviewed current unemployment trends in 2020 and emerging litigation in reflection upon general issues of COVID-19 related age discrimination. Specifically, older workers’ workplace attendance decisions by employers were analyzed within the historical framework of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967 significant amendments in 1978 and 1986). The policy analysis paper presents the implications of employers’ COVID-19 protective policies on older workers and how it may affect the “health” of the workplace and older adults and the economy beyond the pandemic. Lastly, strategies to address an “age-friendly” workplace during a pandemic and post-pandemic are discussed.

Splintering Organizational Subjectivities: Older workers and the dynamics of recognition, vulnerability and resistance

Drawing on insights from Judith Butler’s writing on the dynamics of subjectivity, vulnerability and resistance, this paper explores how older workers negotiate organizational recognition schemes that are based on age-related ideals. The paper draws on observational, documentary and interview data from an Australian call centre where older workers are both championed as a valuable potential recruitment pool and managed through age-biased discourses. Our analysis shows how older workers’ resistance to being positioned as simultaneously valuable and vulnerable leads them to disrupt the normative conditions upon which organizational recognition is premised. We emphasize the importance of an ‘aged’ perspective on workplace recognition in order to better understand how the dynamics of vulnerability and resistance not only shape older worker identities and experiences but also disrupt organizational recognition regimes, exposing the mutual vulnerability of older workers and their managers.

Resource Passageways and Caravans: A Multi-level, Multi-disciplinary Review of the Antecedents of Resources over the Lifespan

Resources are vital for older worker effectiveness and well-being, yet limited attention has been paid to the antecedents of resources. Drawing together the rich cross-disciplinary literature on resources, and through the lens of cumulative disadvantage and resource passageways, we review the individual, organizational, and institutional factors that influence the resources available to people in late working life. The review provides a more nuanced perspective on older workers as agentic actors. We highlight how agency can be constrained via a person’s resources, which are shaped by structural influences. Knowledge of structural influences on resources is important for understanding the experiences of older workers and their continued effectiveness in the work domain. We outline avenues for future research on resources and aging at work that incorporates these multi-level influences.