Age is the silent shaper of work organisations and their human resource practices. It has become a potent feature of how society is structured and how it views itself. Age assumptions mould the behaviours of young and old alike, and are used as political tools by policy makers and managers. This book asks the perennial question — can age ever not matter? Drawing on a range of social scientific and popular writings, it casts a critical eye over the social construction and politicisation of age in and beyond organisations. Amongst other topics, it discusses: the historical roots of age in society; how we ‘perform’ our age in different settings; the social impact of defining age groups as generations; ageism; the effect of an age-cluster on an organisation’s processes and members’ experience; the rituals of retirement and the birth of the retirement industry; the impact of economic recession in challenging some of our assumptions about age; and the increasing politicisation of the growing ‘grey’ population.