Abstract
Objectives: to examine perceived age discrimination in a large representative sample of older adults in England.Methods: this cross-sectional study of over 7,500 individuals used data from the fifth wave of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), a longitudinal cohort study of men and women aged 52 years and older in England. Wave 5 asked respondents about the frequency of five everyday discriminatory situations. Participants who attributed any experiences of discrimination to their age were treated as cases of perceived age discrimination. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the odds ratios of experiencing perceived age discrimination in relation to selected sociodemographic factors.Results: approximately a third (33.3%) of all respondents experienced age discrimination, rising to 36.8% in those aged 65 and over. Perceived age discrimination was associated with older age, higher education, lower levels of household wealth and being retired or not in employment. The correlates of age discrimination across the five discriminatory situations were similar.Conclusion: understanding age discrimination is vital if we are to develop appropriate policies and to target future interventions effectively. These findings highlight the scale of the challenge of age discrimination for older adults in England and illustrate that those groups are particularly vulnerable to this form of discrimination.
Highlights
The population in England and other countries continues to age due to a decrease in fertility coupled with an increased life expectancy
We found that the likelihood of attributing a discriminatory situation to age discrimination generally declined with age, with the exception of medical settings
We found that approximately a third (33.3%) of all respondents experienced age discrimination, rising to 36.8% in the aged 65 and over
Summary
The population in England and other countries continues to age due to a decrease in fertility coupled with an increased life expectancy. Questions about age discrimination have been included in Eurobarometer surveys [3, 4], but the samples in each country have included relatively few older people. On average 26% of respondents aged 62 and older said they sometimes and 11% that they frequently experienced discrimination on account of their age [5]. Another study involving 1,301 people aged 50 and over found that 23% of respondents had experienced age discrimination in the past year [7]. In order to enhance current knowledge, the first objective of our study was to examine the extent of perceived age discrimination in a large nationally representative sample of >7,500 men and women aged 52 and older, assessed as part of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing [8]
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