Tackling Ageism: An Interview With Professor Sarah Vickerstaff

The Midlife Mentors

Something we started to focus on towards the end of last year is the issue of ageism in the workplace. We started to hear more and more anecdotal stories about people being unable to find new roles on the basis of their age, and even spoke to recruitment professionals off the record who told us that clients were filtering applicants by age.

Clearly there’s a huge personal cost to ageism, but in today’s skill shortage environment there can also be great cost to organisations. The job site Total Jobs released research on ageism in 2024 that highlighted some disturbing trends, with 59% of recruiters admitting to making age-based assumptions and 46% considering candidates over 57 “too old.”

We wanted to know more, so in this episode we’re joined by Professor Sarah Vickerstaff, Professor Emerita of Work and Employment at the University of Kent, and a leading expert in this field. She co-authored the Total Jobs research and she shares with us not only her findings about how age discrimination manifests in the job market, but most importantly—practical steps we can all take to create more inclusive, respectful work environments.

Whether you’re an employer aiming to retain valuable talent or an employee seeking fair treatment, this conversation will shed light on the realities of workplace ageism and offer pathways for positive change. So settle in, and get ready for an insightful discussion that might just change how you view your career journey and the role age plays in it. We hope you enjoy it.
For more information about Sarah click below:
https://www.kent.ac.uk/school-of-social-sciences/people/1451/vickerstaff-sarah
Email:
[e-mail]

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