Not only at work: Where and how is ageism manifested
The phrase "time is not waiting" and "watch ticking" at least once heard every woman in Russia. In a country where the average age of birth of the first child is twenty-five and a half years, until now they are often prejudiced against the “free” thirty-year-olds - what can we say about those over forty. Youth still seems to us an absolute advantage, and maturity an inevitable sentence with a lack of opportunity.
Although the attitude of society towards older people is changing before our eyes - 50+ models appear on the set and on the catwalks, and glossy magazines reject the term "anti-age" - the notorious age still remains an obstacle for many. We know the difficulties that people over fifty face in finding a job, but discrimination is not limited to this. We figured out how still ageism manifests itself in everyday life and how it affects society itself.
It's a question of time
Two hundred years ago in Russia it was considered the norm to marry at sixteen, and until 1830 the bride could be thirteen to fifteen years old. In the 19th century, a twenty-year-old bride could be called “old-fashioned”, and to twenty-five in some provinces girls were given the titles of “perears,” “slingshots,” and simply “old ones”. Approximately such ideas about youth were in Europe. “With her was a young lady, not very young, I would say about twenty,” the narrator describes one of the heroines of the novel about David Copperfield, Charles Dickens, published in 1849.
Today, older people are called much older people. For example, 30% of Russians believe that old age begins between 50 and 59 years (although another 27% indicate 60-69 years), while the average age of the population, according to Rosstat, is 39.7 years: 42 years for women and 36.9 years for men. Considering the average life expectancy in Russia — 72 years — in this situation, it takes fifteen to twenty years to “old age,” that is, about a quarter of life. And this period is perceived as the worst: according to the POF survey, for the majority it does not have any advantages over other segments of life.
In the meantime, the older population is growing: according to the World Bank, over half a century from 1965 to 2015, the proportion of people over 65 in the world has grown one and a half times - from 5% to 8.5%. And the UN predicts that by 2050 the number of people 60 years and older will double and be more than two billion. The problem of population aging is spoken of in many countries with a developed economy: the social security costs of retirees hit the country's welfare. Therefore, for example, over the past few years, the authorities of Australia, Poland, Canada, Ireland and the Netherlands have declared raising the retirement age to 67 years. At the same time, in Russia in 2017 the average pension is 13,657 rubles - and despite indexation, it grows clearly slower than expenses: in 2018, the amount will increase by only 500 rubles.
The older a person becomes, the more he feels excluded from public life and more often he faces the condescending attitude of young people.
The public consciousness is not keeping pace with demographic changes: although in Russia one third of the population is over fifty years old, society continues to perceive older age as a flaw. If, after fifty, people are confronted with a condescending attitude, then older people are often treated as “living monuments” or as children: they need to smile, let them speak, showing a polite interest - but about full-fledged conversation and perception of them as often equal to speech not coming The older a person becomes, the more he feels excluded from public life and more often he faces a condescending attitude of younger people. As a result, people are forced to put up with this state of affairs: "I think that many people themselves refer to old age, old age as a period of survival, when everything is bad, when you are no longer needed, you are helpless, you are, in general, second grade "- considers the director of the Agency of social information Elena Topoleva-Soldunova.
The loss of work and retirement is the beginning of exclusion from society, and because of the aging of the population, the group of "excluded" is constantly growing. It is no coincidence that in our country retirement, according to a poll by the VTsIOM, is considered one of the most difficult periods of life: at this time, a person does not lead an active life, becomes poorer, loses some acquaintances and can afford less work. At the same time, retirees are considered weak, needing constant assistance - financial or medical. Which, of course, does not negate the need for support as such.
Not joy
In 1995, Maria Morais, a resident of Portugal, experienced an unsuccessful operation, after which she could no longer have sex. She sued the hospital and in 2013 won with a compensation of 80 thousand euros. But a year later the decision was canceled. The unsuccessful operation took place at an “age when sex is not as important as in youth” - this is how the Portuguese court explained its decision. Moraish in 1995 was only fifty. Justice triumphed only in early October 2017. The European Court of Human Rights concluded that the decision that sex at fifty is no longer important is due to outdated notions that female sexuality matters only in the context of childbearing.
An example of Moraish is a typical illustration of how society perceives people over fifty. In 2014, scientists at University College London studied the experience of about 7,500 Englishmen over fifty-two years old and found that a third of them face discrimination because of age. Aegeism is manifested in less respectful communication, worse service in stores, cafes and hospitals, condescending attitude, threats and harassment.
In general, in countries of Europe, discrimination of people over fifty-five years is widespread - this is what 42% of respondents in the European Union think (they think about it more often than problems of gender inequality). And 5% of the respondents themselves faced with ageism - this is the highest indicator among all the options for discrimination listed in the survey.
It is customary to talk about age discrimination mainly in the context of employment: in Russia, finding work even after forty or forty five years is not easy. But ageism is a much more common and complex phenomenon, and it manifests itself daily: in communication with others, judgments and perceptions. A typical example is the comments about the wife of the new president of France, Emmanuel Macron, Brigitte Macron, who is twenty-four years older than her husband. The difference in the age of spouses has led to many theories about why these relationships are “not real”: the tabloids assumed that Macron was gay or was dating a woman younger, and marriage to Brigitte was only a cover.
The difference in the age of the spouses was the reason for the theories about why this relationship is “not real”: the tabloids assumed that Macron was gay or was dating a woman younger.
Other texts in the spirit of "best movies to watch with parents" explain what mom will like in famous movies. On the one hand, it follows from the dynamics of relations between matured children and parents (not all even years later are ready to discuss "complex" topics), on the other, stereotypes break through: it is believed that people of mature age will not be able to appreciate the film's artistic value in the presence of a mat and bed scenes. Other well-established ideas about older people are associated, for example, with vulnerability, loneliness, problems with health and cognitive abilities, “old-fashionedness” - and not only respondents from Russian surveys associate old age with deprivation.
Cliches generate appropriate behavior: in different years, scientists have noticed that, for example, landlords are less willing to rent housing to older people. Even children are discriminated against people of mature age: during the experiment they were offered to play with a young (35 years old) and mature (75 years old) person - in the second case, the children sat further away from the person, avoided eye contact and spoke less. Often, words, behavior, or even a person’s character are explained by his age — although, according to research, strong emotions and character traits appear almost the same as in his youth.
Risk group
"We ourselves are afraid to talk about old age, this is an uncomfortable topic," argues Natalia Peryazeva, the founder of the Kamina Fairy Tale project. For illustration, she cites "an example with slippers": even relatives often donate things for the elderly to their relatives at home — slippers or bathrobes — without thinking about whether they have other interests and hobbies. "To be honest, for me, this is already a form of violence, because we limit the elderly person in his freedom," she concludes.
The European Union is investigating the state of affairs, and 2012 was even declared the year of active aging and solidarity of generations: the EU decided that the older generation needed support in the labor market, the ability to participate more in social life and take care of health. The Russian authorities also thought about “active aging”: last year, the government adopted the “Action Strategy for the benefit of senior citizens”.
Ageism is dangerous not only for the state and the economy as a whole: it has a negative effect on the psyche and health of those who are discriminated, according to scientists at University College London. The ordinariness of ageism leads to the fact that people are less and less involved in social and cultural life - while people of mature age, who communicate with others a lot, less cognitive abilities decrease. It is not by chance that the states pay attention to the problem of elimination of the elderly from public life: after all, if discrimination persists, then after a few decades the oppressed group will be the majority of the society. And it will definitely include everyone who used to be among the "privileged" - that is, the young.
PHOTO: Maksim Shebeko - stock.adobe.com (1, 2, 3)
