While We Are Fixing DEI, Maybe We Should Address Ageism
As a new Executive Order dismantles DEI programs across the federal government, executives in academia, and corporations are abandoning or retooling their programs. The pendulum is swinging back hard.
In 2023 the Supreme Court ruled that race-based affirmative action admission programs at UNC and Harvard were?illegal and violated the Equal Protection clause under the Constitution.
Since then corporate attorneys have been warning clients about liability issues associated with certain DEI practices.
Corporations have also been warned to reassess vendor diversity programs which may run afoul of the law.?Procurement expert Jason Busch wrote: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/your-supplier-diversity-program-illegal-heres-how-fix-jason-busch-9dfec/
Author Coleman Hughes, who advocates for a color-blind government asks if this is the end for DEI? https://www.thefp.com/p/coleman-hughes-the-end-of-dei
The message is clear. Merit has not been given the prominence it deserves. Any preference system based on other factors risks hurting non-favored individuals. Prejudice based on attributes unrelated to the job is most likely moving you in the wrong direction.
If you are fixing your program, note that not enough focus has been placed on the protected?class that we all will fall into if we live long enough.?
Ageism is alive and well.?
Easily it is the one form of discrimination in hiring that is still pervasive. People over 40 years old, (the federal age for protection against age discrimination) represent about 50% of the US workforce. Over 50 is only 25% and over 65 is less than 7%. But about half did not choose to retire, they were encouraged, pushed or outright let go. Most companies are careful in layoffs and try to avoid triggering lawsuits, but the numbers don't lie. Older employees are let go at higher rates.
Getting new a job after 50 is much harder.
Older workers score lower on experience than younger workers. That's right. Hiring managers?in a 2021 Generation study rated applicants over age 45 significantly lower in application readiness, cultural fit, and…experience than both 18–34-year-olds and 35–45-year-olds. You know the deck is stacked against you when older workers are considered to have lower experience value.
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Age prejudice is clear.
David Neumark's ?2020?study for the National Bureau of Economic Research compared age-blind hiring and age-aware hiring. It showed a 68% decrease in offers for older applicants whose age was known, and a 40% decrease in offers for age-blind applications once the age of an applicant was learned.?
Older Workers are not inferior.
A meta-study led by C.A. Viviani using 74 individual studies showed no real difference in performance between older and younger workers (41% of the findings showed no differences, 31% reported better productivity of younger workers, 28% reported that older workers had better productivity than younger workers). To be fair, older workers can be more expensive to insure and miss more time for illness.
Older workers may be your best source of talent.
The US workforce is aging, meaning the supply of workers over 40 is growing. The number of Americans ages 65 and older will more than double over the next 40 years, reaching 80 million in 2040. Older workers with up-to-date skills may be a great place to find qualified candidates. Many are also financially unprepared for retirement and need to stick around. Hiring managers may want to rethink their approach to candidates over 40 when they revisit their diversity efforts.
Parts adapted from The Rule of 70, A Single Rule for a Rewarding Life