Ageism, Prevalent and On the Rise, Impacts Estate Planning

When counseling clients regarding estate planning designed to protect assets and decision-making, among the most insidious risks are those arising from discrimination. Many clients are unaccustomed to considering ageism, and many are unaccustomed to considering themselves vulnerable to discrimination.  Educating clients regarding how ageism impacts them, for example, in legal determinations of incapacity and incompetence, is imperative to effective comprehensive planning.  

Unfortunately, the challenge of ageism is  not getting easier. In fact, at least according to an article in the Washington Post, the fight against ageism is a losing battle: 

"At a time when conditions have vastly improved for women, gay people, disabled people and minorities in the workplace, prejudice against older workers remains among the most acceptable and pervasive “isms.” And it’s not clear that the next generations — ascendant Gen Xers and millennials — will be treated any better."

Ageism, which is not a new phenomenon, is explored from several perspectives in the Washington Post article.  The bias is so common we frequently don’t recognize it. Todd Nelson, a psychology professor at California State University at Stanislaus, singled out birthday cards as one bellwether of the pervasiveness of prejudice for portraying advancing age as something to be ashamed of, with a tone that would never be used with race or religion.  

Internet memes like the “Scumbag Baby Boomer” and “Old Economy Steve,” which lambast boomers for transgressions from failing to adopt technology to causing the wars and recessions that millennials have weathered, channel resentment against an entire category of people in ways that might not be tolerated if they were members of another protected class.

But the article warns that "[t]his cultural backdrop has horrifyingly real consequences for many on the wrong side of 40. Formal age discrimination cases...spiked during the most recent recession and haven’t fully subsided. Long-term unemployment, defined as being jobless for 27 weeks or longer , is markedly worse for workers over age 55 than for the general population.  In contrast to the respect often accorded to the generation that fought World War II, their progeny are facing relative hostility in their senescence."

The article describes recent evidence:

"In a 2015 survey by the Harris Poll, for example, 65 percent of boomers rated themselves as being the “best problem-solvers/troubleshooters,” and only 5 percent of millennials agreed. Fifty-four percent of millennials thought boomers were the “biggest roadblocks.” Sometimes these perceptions come straight from the top: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg once said “young people are just smarter.”

Those attitudes apply not just to perceptions of “old” people, but also to expectations: A 2013 experiment found that young people looked more favorably upon older adults who “act their age” by listening to Frank Sinatra over the Black Eyed Peas, or by being more generous with their money. One of the researchers, Michael North, an assistant professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, says younger people tend to resent it when older workers don’t “get out of the way” and retire.

The article describes that the bias is so pervasive that, unlike with those facing similar forms of discrimination, it is the affected population that is often expected to resolve or mitigate the the effects of discrimination, by, for example, modifying their behavior, wardrobe, or methods or means  of communication.  The article surveys the laws that protect seniors, and those that protect against age discrimination, but concludes that these have been ineffective, in part because markets and institutions depend upon, and perpetuate bias, and in part because the bias is so pervasive that identifying and eradicating it in specific situations is almost impossible.