Double Jeopardy
by Barbara Reinhold
Some experts say age discrimination can begin as early as when the worker turns 40. In 2001, by the time workers reach their 50s, they might have to:
- Take twice as much time to find a new job.
- Move from large corporate environments to smaller businesses.
- Change fields.
- Settle for a lower salary if they change jobs.
Like older workers, women are facing unique challenges. While women hold more than half the managerial and professional positions, they command less than 12 percent of top honours, such as earnings, inclusion on executive committees and board memberships.
The Challenges Add Up
How do these facts about age and gender fit together? Ever heard of potentiation -- when one substance you're taking into your body enhances or complicates another one's effects? A similar reaction is happening now in the case of older women (that is, women over 50 or, in some instances, even in their 40s). Some employers (people in positions of power in their respective organisations) imprint double negatives on older women employees.
Why the double negative? It's a psychological phenomenon called “imprinting,” wherein we draw conclusions about what to expect of certain categories of people based on our experiences as children with people in these categories. When unchallenged, the imprinting can even determine how we'll feel about ourselves later in life. For instance, if we saw our grandparents as frail and unhealthy, then we are more likely to feel vulnerable and be unhealthy ourselves when we are our grandparents' age.
Women who are now in their 50s and older have lived through a major paradigm shift in women's expected personal and professional roles. When they and the people in charge of the organisations where they work were children, they were imprinted with more negative perceptions of older women's vitality and professionalism, and not much has happened to counter those images.
So what do we make of this situation for older career women? Does the deck appear to be stacked against them in terms of both age and gender? Unfortunately, yes. But are the shifting demographics likely to create new opportunities for skilled women to be taken seriously? Yes again, by 2010 we'll have about 10 million more job openings than we have skilled and qualified people to fill them.
What Older Women Can Do
What should happen now? The best thing would be for women in their 40s, 50s and 60s to do a better job of reaching out and advising each other. Concerted outreach could enable more women to confront the negative imprinting which they and their male peers are probably carrying as well as encourage them to keep updating their skills so they'll be ready to take advantage of the upcoming demographic changes.
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