Professor John Macnicol,
University College London (UCL)
Research seminar, University of St Andrews
Wednesday 12 June 2019
12.30pm – 2pm
Professor Macnicol presents a seminar entitled “Analysing ageism and age discrimination (at work)”. In the last twenty years, there has been much discussion of ageism and age discrimination in employment in the UK. Many argue that age should join class, gender and race as protected characteristics in any modern, civilised society. However, there are intriguing problems with the timing of this renewed interest, and in many ways both concepts have been under discussion for a very long time. It is possible, for example, to see interest in age discrimination in employment as far back as the 1930s. The question is, therefore, why these disadvantages have re-appeared on the public policy agenda, and to what extent they have been used to justify a workfarist agenda which may not be in the best interests of older people.