In 2006, the United Kingdom passed legislation against age discrimination in employment. This legislation outlawed direct and indirect discrimination, granted employment protection to older workers, ...allowing opportunities for older workers to work past the age of sixty-five. In the United States, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) has been safeguarding the rights and interests of older workers since 1967. This act provided protection against age-based discrimination in hiring, firing, promotion, demotion, retraining, working hours, compensation, workplace harassment and other aspects of employment. Since 1968, mandatory retirement has been abolished except for in a few occupations where public safety is an issue. Interestingly the ADEA did not protect elected officials, their staff and other high-level policy makers. It did not affect the minimum age for certain public offices and nor did it provide age-based legal protection for young people. This chapter explores the origins and the subsequent development of the ADEA, and draws some parallels with Britain. In doing so, the chapter does not tacitly accept the policy maker's assumption that the benefits of such legislation is unproblematic, and that the issues are simply technocratic ones relating to minor adjustments. Instead, the chapter analyses the ADEA's origins, aims and achievements from a critical perspective.
In Pursuit of the Underclass Macnicol, John
Journal of social policy,
07/1987, Letnik:
16, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The 1970s saw a wide ranging debate in GB, initiated by Sir Keith Joseph, on the apparent existence of a cycle of deprivation. Most participants viewed this debate as having originated in the 1960s, ...but in fact, versions of the general concept of an intergenerational underclass have figured prominently in social debates during the past 100 years. In particular, in the interwar period there were several investigations of a hereditary social problem group, investigations that were crucial to a wider conservative social reformist strategy. These investigations produced inconclusive results, however, because ultimately the underclass is a statistical artefact, the existence of which can only be argued by the use of several serious methodological contradictions. 68 References. HA
The movement for voluntary sterilization of the mentally deficient is used to illustrate that the eugenics movement had very little influence on social policy between WWI & WWII in GB. While ...organizers went to great lengths to sway both public opinion & the Ministry of Health & Board of Control, the movement was largely unsuccessful due in large part to its ideological complexity. Also, proposed legislation met intense opposition from the Labour Party who interpreted voluntary sterilization as anti-working-class legislation. R. Logsdon
Since the early 1970s, there has been an increasing emphasis in western societies on the enhancement of individual rights via legislative action against discrimination in social relations & attitudes ...as well as in access to employment. In the UK, this has recently intensified via New Labour's 'equality agenda'. Part of this process has involved a rediscovery of ageism in social relations & attitudes & of age discrimination in employment. (both of which actually have a long history). This increasing emphasis on human rights has occurred alongside the rise of a neoliberal political & economic culture, characterised by policies to expand labour supply, competitive individualism, widening income inequality, the growth of low-paid insecure employment & attacks on welfare rights in general & on those of older people in particular (most notably, via the raising of state pension ages). What we may be witnessing, therefore, is a reincarnation of nineteenth century ideas that welfare categories should be abolished & all citizens should seek support through paid employment & private welfare via individual savings -- a strategy that has been increasingly argued by neoliberals since the transformation of western economies that began in the 1970s. A proper understanding of the meanings of ageism, therefore, must recognise that its recent rediscovery is built upon foundations that are dualistic & contradictory. This paper will explore these contradictions inherent in the modern meanings of ageism.
With the advent of the twentieth century, the growing use of birth control in all advanced industrialized countries raised the fear of eugenic social engineering by a coercive state, yet an active ...eugenics movement was created & exerted much influence. In GB, the movement reached its zenith between WWI & WWII, yet failed to have any lasting effect on social policy or legislation, despite its promises of "social improvement." Focusing on the movement's voluntary sterilization campaign, which was promoted as a way to restrict the breeding of the "unfit," several reasons for this failure are explored. Of particular note are: division within the medical profession over the inheritability of mental defects; opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, organizations charged with the care of the mentally ill & retarded, & the labor movement; legal & larger political problems raised by the voluntary sterilization issue; & the horrendous turns taken by the eugenics movement in Germany. K. Hyatt
IntroductionIn 2006, the United Kingdom finally passed legislation against age discrimination in employment. The essentials can be summarised quickly: both direct and indirect discrimination are ...outlawed; improved employment protection has been granted to older workers; and the opportunity to work past the age of 65 is now negotiable with employers. Over the coming years, numerous legal decisions will test the legislation's defences, and other political pressures will be brought to bear which may abolish mandatory retirement for all but a few occupations.Ostensibly, the new Age Regulations are a direct response to the European Union Employment Directive on Equal Treatment of November 2000 (2000/78/ET), which obliges member states to redesign their existing legislation on race, sex and disability discrimination, while universalising legislative action against age discrimination. However, in the medium term, the British legislation represents the culmination of a revival of interest in the problems of older workers that has intensified since the early 1990s, in response to concerns over the fall in older men's economic activity rates since the 1970s (although these have risen since 1994), a future ageing population, skills shortages and human capital wastage, and those overall labour-supply considerations that are central to the New Deal. Action against age discrimination is part of the government strategy of attaining an 80% overall employment rate and getting one million people aged between 50 and state pension age back into work. The largely voluntarist approach of John Major's Conservative government (1990-97) was followed by New Labour's post-1997 initiatives – notionally more proactive, but still very cautious. From 2000, however, legislation became inevitable and the example of other countries has been arousing growing interest.In designing legislation against age discrimination in employment, the obvious country to examine is the United States, which has had, at federal level, an Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) since 1967 (with subsequent amendments). The ADEA provides protection against age-based discrimination in hiring, firing, promotion, demotion, retraining, working hours, compensation, workplace harassment and other aspects of employment. Since 1986, mandatory retirement has been abolished for all but a few key occupations where public safety is an issue (notably, firefighters, bus drivers, civilian airline pilots, prison guards and uniformed police officers).
