Age discrimination is a highly topical issue in all industrialised societies, against a background of concerns about shortening working lives and ageing populations in the future. Based upon detailed ...research, and adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this unique study traces the history of the age discrimination debate in Britain and the USA since the 1930s. It critically analyses the concepts of ageism in social relations and age discrimination in employment. Case-studies on generational equity and health care rationing by age are followed by an analysis of the British government's initiatives against age discrimination in employment. The book then traces the history of the debate on health status and old age, addressing the question of whether working capacity has improved sufficiently to justify calls to delay retirement and extend working lives. It concludes with a detailed examination of the origins and subsequent working of the USA's 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
Reconstructing the Underclass Macnicol, John
Social policy and society : a journal of the Social Policy Association,
01/2017, Letnik:
16, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
In late 2011, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government announced the launch of a new programme on 'troubled families' - a term used to describe the estimated 120,000 most ...behaviourally anti-social families in England and Wales. To many social scientists, this appeared to be yet another reconstruction of the broad 'underclass' concept that has run like a thread of analysis through UK poverty discourses over the last 150 years. The symbolic nature and coded meanings of this particular concept of poverty are very interesting, as is the way it has been reconstructed periodically. This paper summarises these reconstructions, and the analytical issues raised by them: the 'residuum' concept of the 1880-1914 period; the 'social problem group' of the inter-war years; the 'problem family' of the 1940s and 1950s; the 'cycle of deprivation' of the 1970s; and the 'underclass' of the 1980s and 1990s.
Age discrimination has become a topical issue in Britain, and legislation is promised by the year 2006. It is often viewed as a recent problem, caused by the decline in older men's economic activity ...rates since the 1970s, by concerns over ageing populations in the future and by the need to extend working lives. Yet it has a long history, going back at least to the 1930s, with much research into older workers being conducted in 1950s Britain. Examination of this history helps us understand some of the difficulties inherent in the concepts of ageism and age discrimination. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
The New Retirement Agenda Macnicol, John
Work, Employment & Society,
06/1999, Letnik:
13, Številka:
2
Journal Article, Book Review
Recenzirano
John A. Vincent, Inequality and Old Age, London: UCL Press, 1995, £13.95, paper, vi+218 pp. Richard Disney, Emily Grundy and Paul Johnson (eds.), The Dynamics of Retirement: Analyses of the ...Retirement Surveys, London: The Stationery Office, 1997, £36.00, paper, xvii+279 pp. Alan Walker and Tony Maltby, Ageing Europe, Buckingham: Open University Press, 1997, £14.99, paper, x+149 pp. The ancient Chinese curse - ‘may you live in interesting times’ - seems to be being applied to social gerontology. All Western economies have been experiencing several inter-related trends: falling labour force participation rates among males in their late 50s and early 60s, raising the question of whether ‘welfare to work’ compulsion will soon be applied to them; fears over population ageing after the second decade of the 21st century, with worsening gerontic dependency ratios; the problem of how to ‘reform’ state pensions, to achieve the seemingly-impossible task of both reducing costs and providing adequate cover for the growing number of citizens who will find themselves in the low-paid, casualised periphery of the labour market; and the likelihood of increased disability and chronic illness levels among the larger numbers of ‘oldest old’. Yet social gerontologists have risen to the challenge posed by these trends. Never has the literature on old age and ageing been so interesting, and these three books represent thoughtful and intelligent responses to questions that often invite ill-considered, apocalyptic answers.
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.
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