Perceptions of the older employee: is anything really changing?
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/00483489710172051 |
| Pages | 245-257 |
| Published date | 01 August 1997 |
| Date | 01 August 1997 |
| Author | Phil Lyon,David Pollard |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Perceptions of
the older
employee
245
Perceptions of the older
employee: is anything really
changing?
Phil Lyon
School of Management and Consumer Studies, University of Dundee,
Dundee, Scotland, UK and
David Pollard
Dundee Business School, University of Abertay, Dudhope Castle,
Dundee, Scotland, UK
Introduction
Ageism, discrimination on the basis of chronological age, is a deep-seated
phenomenon in British culture and, specifically, of the UK workplace. In the
past, age has been simultaneously a positive and a negative attribute of the
individual. In positive terms, gaining adulthood was the key to “adult rates of
pay” which were clearly distinguished from those of apprentices and other
“young persons”. Long-service, sometimes within an occupation but more often
within an organization, brought certain advantages for workers (see, for
example, Lyon et al., 1993). Seniority was a workplace concept almost totally
devoid of negative connotations. Indeed, it was really the key to being taken
seriously within an organization.
However, ageing has always been tainted with ambivalence and there is little
evidence that there has ever been a “golden age” for older employees in terms of
anything other than crude supply and demand in the labour market. Even then
it is possible to overstate the attraction of older employees. In the 1950s and
1960s when considerable labour demand existed in the UK, only some of that
demand was to be satisfied by older employees deferring their retirement. An
increased supply of married women workers and mass immigration were much
more significant in their labour market effects. Studies of that era (for example,
Clark, 1963; Heron and Chown, 1961) point to a degree of selectivity in the
movement of older employees from one task to another and in the offer of work
beyond the retirement age. Indeed, even where the extended employment of
older people was considered, this was easier on the internal labour market than
it was externally. In the former, at least strengths were known; in the latter,
potential weaknesses would be assumed real. This point is illustrated in a
comment on male manual workers.
Individuals will differ, but there seems little doubt that as a group men begin to show their age
by the mid-fifties. An employer will probably be quite happy to continue to employ a man of
this age whose abilities he knows. But once that man is out of work, potential new employers
will look askance at him, fearful of what his sickness record may be, and what effort can be
Personnel Review, Vol. 26 No. 4,
1997, pp. 245-257. © MCB
University Press, 0048-3486
To continue reading
Request your trial