Ageism

The view of older people, and particularly those with cognitive impairments, in society is often characterized by ageism (Balas, 2011; Herrick, Pearcey, & Ross, 1997).  Ageism is the stigmatization of a person or group based on their age, which can be seen in the form of stereotyping, prejudicial attitudes, discriminatory practices, and spatial segregation. Stephen Butler, who coined the term “ageism” in 1968, argued that the root cause of ageism is the fear of growing older, becoming ill, losing independence and approaching death that stems from one’s inner consciousness and/or culture. Ageism can happen consciously or as unconscious bias due to a poor and inaccurate understanding of aging. Like other types of stigma, ageism can be directed at oneself or other people and groups. For example, someone might think they are too old to participate in more vigorous physical activities or too old to make new friends and build a new social life. 

 

 

At the interpersonal and community levels, older people might face stereotyping, such as the group taking away positions in workforces from younger generations to name callings such as  “grumpy old people” or “boomer.” They also experience discrimination in various settings, such as acute care and nursing practice. Dahlke and Phinney reported that nurses in acute care spoke of their work with older people as “a nurse’s burden and an obstacle to the more important work of caring for younger adults” (2008, p. 45), showing that the care of older people held little value to the nurses and led to frustration in their work. Furthermore, conflicts between older people and the acute setting demonstrate that the care of older people is not valued in such environments and that, in acute care settings, the work of practitioners can be unfairly prioritized over the needs of older patients (Calnan et al., 2013; Cheek, 2004). 

 

 

Ageism also occurs in institutional policies and practices, such as the policies forcing people to retire at a specific age. Allocating government funding to institutional long-term care and less on caregiving at home is another example of structural ageism, as it excludes older people from living safely and healthily in their communities. Often, ageism is embedded deeply in the structure that we might not be aware of and consider as part of the routines. It is part of the discourses portrayed in popular media, such as movies, advertising, and television. For example, advertisements often portray the beauty of older women as “smooth and flawless skin” and “free of wrinkles.

 Older people are often ignored, dismissed or made to feel invisible. People might assume that they are incompetent. Society’s obsession with youthfulness and their fear of death and dying deemed older people to be less valuable and, hence, less visible. Like racism and sexism, ageism serves a social and economic purpose: to legitimize and sustain inequalities between groups. Ageism is used to influence and assign meaning to how we look.

With the limited amount of resources, the question of who receives the resources and under what conditions is one of the most common narratives discussed by government officials and the public. Older people are often perceived as deserving poor, meaning they are worthy of public and private resources. However, as discussed in the previous section, a person’s social identities intersect and influence their experiences. In this case, other social categories, such as race/ethnicity, gender, and abilities, intersect with age and deem an older person less worthy of resources. For instance, Clarke and Griffin (2008) found that older women who lose their youthful beauty are compelled to enhance their physical appearance with various beauty works to keep them from being set aside by society. Immigrant older adults might be deemed to be less worthy of resources due to the public perception of their limited contribution to society (Yoo, 2002).