Am I Old Enough to Be Taken Seriously?

Harvard Business Review, November 25, 2020

When you Google “age discrimination at work,” you’ll find article after article about bias against older employees and laws aimed at addressing this problem. In the U.S., the federal government has protections in place to prevent discrimination against workers age 40 and up. Companies can’t, for example, legally assume that someone isn’t qualified for a job because they are “too old” to understand how to use a certain technology or implement the latest innovations. That said, it’s questionable whether these protections always work. Ageism against older workers still runs rampant in some companies and industries.

At the same time, these protections don’t apply to young professionals. This is a problem.

A recent study revealed that young adults are often more likely to report experiencing ageism at work than their middle-aged and older counterparts. It’s called “reverse ageism.”