Nearly 2 Out of 3 Women Age 50-Plus Regularly Face Discrimination

“I work in technology, so it’s a lot of younger people,” the woman said. “I try to keep up. I try to dress like everyone else, and I don’t like to wear my glasses at work, even though I have much better vision with my glasses, compared to my contacts. I don’t want to be viewed as older.”

Stereotypes about older workers

Women experience the bulk of age discrimination in the workplace, and ageism tends to be one of the most socially accepted types of discrimination, says Tetyana Shippee, a social gerontologist at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Although hiring managers and employees have been drilled on the inappropriateness of racial bias, negative age stereotypes and ageist attitudes remain common, she observes. “I have witnessed it myself,” Shippee says. “Younger people assume I don’t know how to use technology. And even though age is not supposed to be discussed in hiring, I hear people say they don’t want someone who is too old because ‘we still want them to be vibrant and engaging.’ Across different spheres, I’ve also heard comments about wanting people who are going to ‘stay involved for a long time.’ ”

AARP Research

Research shows that stereotypes about older workers are wrong. Job performance generally improves with age, and older people are highly rated for their loyalty, reliability, leadership and organizational skills, and problem-solving abilities.

“Older workers have a lot to offer, but there is a lack of awareness,” Peña says. “What the world doesn’t realize is that age discrimination is costly not only for the person and their family but for the whole economy. People are living longer, and so many skills are being overlooked.”

Even younger women report age discrimination

Interestingly, the AARP survey reveals that it is not just older women who report age discrimination. Women under 50 were as likely to report being discriminated against because of their age, according to the poll.

Shippee says her own research has produced similar results, revealing a U-shaped curve when it comes to age discrimination of women: “From ages 18 to 30, women report age discrimination due to being too young. From your mid-30s to your mid-40s is a safe time. Then age discrimination starts to pick up again after age 50, and it’s especially high after 55-plus.”

Among working women who experience discrimination regularly, a whopping 88 percent (and 81 percent of those 50-plus) have felt pressured to look or act a certain way at work.

Much of the pressure that women feel is related to the need to look younger, says Yale psychologist Becca Levy, an antiaging researcher and author of Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live. She notes that part of the blame lies with the beauty industry, which bombards women with ads for antiaging products, and part is due to a society that prizes youth.

“In Japan they celebrate aging, rather than thinking of it as something to fear,” Levy says. About 40 percent of respondents in the AARP survey said they feel pressure from social media to do cosmetic procedures such as dermal fillers and Botox, including 1 in 5 who said they feel “a great deal” or “a lot” of pressure to take such steps. Nearly half reported feeling pressure to dye their hair to cover the gray.

More than half of those polled (57 percent) reported at least some pressure to use makeup. But the physical-appearance change that generates the most pressure is weight loss, with 68 percent of women saying they feel pressure to shed pounds.

AARP

Minority women face the most bias

African American women reported the highest levels of discrimination in the AARP survey, with 70 percent of those 50-plus saying they experience discrimination regularly. On average, they experience four to five types of it, including bias related to their ethnicity/race/skin tone, social class, weight and age. And about 59 percent of Latina and 60 percent of Asian American/Pacific Islander respondents 50 and older said they are regularly discriminated against.

Gilbert Gee, a professor in the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA, says other studies confirm that people of color in the United States are subject to the highest levels of discrimination. While outright bias is less accepted than it once was, Gee notes that more mundane microaggressions can still take a devastating toll.

“Things that people encounter on a day-to-day basis — people making assumptions about you, being treated less courteously or being followed in a store — all of those things are very stressful,” he says. “They take a toll on self-esteem and self-concept.”

Patricia Malone, 59, of Jeffersonville, Indiana, has rarely been subjected to overtly racist comments, but she says she often feels like she is being judged because she is a Black woman.

In a previous job as a social worker, she believed there were people who didn’t like her because she was an African American woman who spoke up for herself. And when she moved into a mostly white neighborhood, comments from some of her neighbors made her feel unwelcome.

“I like to think I can read people,” Malone says. “The way they talked to me, asking, ‘What kind of work do you do, exactly?’ It just made me feel like they didn’t think I should be here.”

Discrimination affects mental health

Discrimination is linked to a number of psychological problems. A study published in the journal Pediatrics in November 2021, for example, found that adults who faced discrimination frequently were about 25 percent more likely to be diagnosed with a mental disorder and twice as likely to develop severe psychological distress than those who didn’t experience discrimination or did so less often.

Shippee’s research, meanwhile, revealed a link between age discrimination and higher rates of depression and lower overall life satisfaction.

Shippee says that discrimination of all types creates chronic stress that can affect your mental health in very direct ways. Even the anticipation of discrimination causes stress and may prompt people to avoid situations where they expect to be treated poorly, possibly forcing them to miss out on opportunities.

“Over time, it impacts your feeling of self-worth,” Shippee says. “We know when people’s perception of self-worth decreases they are less likely to try new things, to feel like they are achieving and meeting their goals. It’s a very serious threat to one’s overall life satisfaction.”

Arlean Cortes, 57, of Pomona, California, says she faced bias in her personal life and in her career as a medical assistant because of her Hispanic ethnicity and her sexual preference (she’s a lesbian). More recently, she has started to worry about age discrimination.

“It makes you do a whole lot more second-guessing,” she says. “It messes with your mental health.”

Discrimination has also been linked to physical problems, including hypertension, heart disease and chronic illness. What’s more, it may shorten your life span.

In a pivotal study on the impact of ageism, Levy and coauthors found that median survival was seven and a half years shorter for those who had the most negative attitudes about aging, compared with those who held positive beliefs.

Read the full "Mirror/Mirror" survey here.

Michelle Crouch is a contributing writer who has covered health and personal finance for some of the nation’s top consumer publications. Her work has appeared in Reader’s Digest, Real Simple, Prevention, The Washington Post and The New York Times.