Criticising ‘wealth hoarding boomers’ is ageist stereotype, MPs warn
Criticism of older people as “wealth hoarding boomers” is a form of ageist stereotyping, a report by MPs has warned.
Ageism is “widespread and culturally embedded” in the UK and discrimination laws are currently “failing” older people, the MPs have said.
The Women and Equalities Committee of MPs concluded the UK has a “pervasively ageist culture” which is seen as less serious and harmful than other kinds of discrimination.
Titled ‘The Rights of Older People’, the report warned the elderly are often negatively “stereotyped as ‘boomers’, who hoard wealth to the disadvantage of younger people”.
This is despite the Centre for Ageing Better arguing that “the intergenerational ‘fairness’ narrative often ignores… inequality within generations too”, which results in generations becoming “proxies for either wealth or poverty” and true inequality being hidden, MPs said.
MPs heard from witnesses that older people are seen as “living comfortable lives in homes they own while younger generations struggle on low incomes, unable to afford to enter the housing market and struggling with high rents”, the report added.
They argued that such “ageist stereotyping, including portrayals of older people as frail, helpless or incompetent, or conversely as wealth hoarding ‘boomers’,” was “highly prevalent” across the UK’s media, and “breeding unnecessary and unhelpful division”.
Some 11m people in England and Wales are currently aged 65 or older, with more than half a million aged over 90, with levels set to increase in the coming decades.
MPs warned the government faces “significant cross-departmental challenges and opportunities” and not enough is being done to address issues faced by older people.
They also warned of the high risk of digital exclusion for many older people as many services from healthcare to banking move online, and branded it a “considerable failure that the UK’s digital inclusion strategy has not been updated in over a decade”.
Ministers, they said, must prioritise a new strategy that includes local digital skills provision and ensures there are offline alternatives for people “for as long as needs remain”.
While legal protections against age discrimination, the MPs said, were “failing older people” with protections “inadequate and rarely enforced”.
They called on the government to commission and fund the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to “review the effectiveness of protections against age discrimination”, and strengthen a “reasonable steps” duty on employers to prevent age discrimination.
Calls to toughen up the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), broadcast media regulator Ofcom and the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) were also recommended.
Committee chairwoman Sarah Owen said: “The report shows clearly that age discrimination is widespread in the UK and often minimised compared to other forms of discrimination.
“A comprehensive review of age discrimination law is a necessary step in tackling the UK’s pervasively ageist culture.
While Caroline Abrahams, Age UK charity director, said ageism led to “policy decisions that unfairly exclude older people, such as… thoroughly capable older workers not being recruited because they are stereotyped as being ‘past it’.”
Dr Carole Easton, chief executive at the Centre for Ageing Better, said: “Tackling age-based prejudice will allow millions more people to fully realise their potential as they get older, to the benefit of themselves as well as employers and the economy more widely.”
A government spokesperson said: “The Equality Act contains strong protections for older people in a variety of settings, including work and the provision of services.
“We recognise the importance of older people and the challenges they face. That is why we are putting more money into pensioners’ pockets through our commitment to the triple lock – which is set to increase the state pension by up to £1,900 this Parliament.”