Older Workers: Job Market Opportunities

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Greengross (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for securing this important debate. The Office for National Statistics published data in November 2021 showing that, since the end of the Government’s furlough scheme during the pandemic, many over-50s have fallen out of the workforce. The figures showed that, in September 2021, 362,000 over-50s were unemployed and 3.5 million people aged between 50 and 64 were economically inactive.

As we know, one of the key challenges we face in this area is discrimination and some outdated ideas about age and work. Since the Equality Act was passed in 2010, it has been illegal to discriminate against someone based on their age; this includes age discrimination at work. To be clear, this age discrimination is not just against older workers. It also includes young adults, who often face considerable challenges due to discrimination.

Why am I talking about young workers in a debate about older workers? Since I ran Age Concern England for many years, people believe that my passion and area of knowledge is solely ageing. In fact, much of my earlier career and later voluntary work was in supporting young people. From 2006 to 2012, I had the privilege of being an equality and human rights commissioner. In truth, human rights have always been my main area of interest, rather than ageing or focusing only on a particular stage of life. My work in advocating for older people has always been focused on ensuring that people’s human rights are protected and not changed or diminished after a certain number of birthdays; that is pure discrimination.

Despite being illegal, age discrimination is still rife. One of the key reasons for this is unconscious bias against older people in work—and, in fact, in society generally. This is often reinforced by structural bias, whereby organisations continue to work within structures and policies that assume that the human life course is much the same as it was a century ago. The human life course has changed and continues to change; as we know, it depends on change. A baby born in 2022 will not live the same life as someone born in the 20th century. The idea that we go to school until we are 18, get a qualification so that we can get a job, work until we hit our 60s and then retire is totally out of date. In 2022, someone who is 50 could easily spend another 25 to 30 years in the workforce, yet people in their 50s are too often dismissed as “older” when in fact they may live and work for many more years, often with life experience and talent.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

My Lords, the bells are not ringing for some reason but there is a Division going on in the House. I move that the Grand Committee adjourn briefly. Officially we are meant to do so for 10 minutes, but I suggest that we resume once all noble Lords participating have indicated to me that they have voted successfully.

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[Baroness Greengross (CB)]

My Lords, too often, even people meaning to do the right thing inadvertently reinforce age discrimination. An example is the campaign by various ageing organisations in the UK and internationally to create a separate UN convention for older persons’ rights. There are two problems with that. First, it is not clear who we count as old. As we know, people age at different rates and the ageing process affects people quite differently. If we are saying that people over 50 are older, when life expectancy in the UK is currently 81 years and an increasing number of people are living to 100, that is, frankly, ridiculous. Worse, it says that when someone is older, having had a certain number of birthdays, their human rights are different and covered by a separate UN convention. Separate conventions may do good work to protect the rights of disabled people, where we can clearly define what is a disability, but with ageing it is much vaguer.

Worse, our understanding of ageing is generally built on a lack of understanding and an unconscious or, at least at times, conscious diminishing of older people’s contributions to society. We do not need a separate UN convention; we do not need to treat people differently. Instead, we need to treat a 73 year-old worker not as an older worker but as a worker, with the same human rights as everyone else. If a 73 year-old worker develops a disability, we should support this worker in the same way as we support a 53 or 33 year-old with a disability. Instead, we label older people pensioners, defining people over a certain age by their eligibility to receive state income and dismissing their potential contribution to society.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that we abolish the state pension, and I believe it was an important part of developing our welfare state in the 20th century, but in 2022, we need to understand that not only do many workers work well beyond the state pension age but it is often good for a person’s health and quality of life to do so. One of the biggest challenges we face is isolation and loneliness, something often experienced by people who have retired or are no longer economically active. This can lead to depression and is a contributing factor towards people developing dementia.

What steps can the Government take to support older workers to secure new opportunities in the jobs market? Our first step is to challenge unconscious bias and outdated ideas about ageing and work. We must do more to enforce anti-age discrimination measures in the Equality Act. This starts with education and challenging those outdated ideas. Crucially, it is also about challenging the idea that older people are to be treated differently, including by those wishing to help them. Instead, we need a strong economy that provides good jobs for all adults, whatever their age, who are willing and want to work, and makes it possible for them to do so.