Many Americans have applauded President Biden’s recent decision to step down as the Democratic presidential candidate to pass the torch to someone younger. But has this decision, made with the blessings of society, sent a tacit message to other elderly people who are still serving in the workforce? “Retire and let someone younger take your place!” Unfortunately, this may be the tip of the proverbial iceberg: a systemic societal predilection to see the elderly as expendable.
It is not unremarkable that Biden felt obliged to joke about his age: “I know I don’t look like it, but I’ve been around a while, I do remember that” he stated, in response to special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of classified documents in which Hur referred to Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man.” (Yahoo News, 2024). And, while Biden’s jest drew laughter from his audience, this was, arguably, no laughing matter. A jest about someone’s race would be considered racist; so why is a joke about someone’s age (even if it is made about oneself) not ageist? And why is it okay to call the President of the United States (or any elderly adult male) a “well-meaning elderly man” as if being elderly automatically entailed incompetence? Why do such remarks, unassumingly, receive a social nod?
Why Ageism Is No Laughing Matter
From one perspective, age is not like race, because aging is an existential condition for all human beings, whereas one’s particular race is not. Thus, a white person does not eventually grow into a black person just as a young person grows old. So, in a sense, jests about age are about all of us, as we all (eventually) end up in the same boat, so to speak.
But notice that there is a fallacy in this line of thinking because the young are not yet in the same boat. They are still different. Elderly people look different (age changes human skin, hair, bone density, body mass, morphology, etc.); they speak using a different vocabulary; and see the world differently because the social norms, laws, economic conditions, politics, technologies, and other life factors they grew up with have influenced the way they were socialized. As such, elder generations belong to different cultural groups, which means that discrimination against them is like discrimination against any other cultural group.
Behind this veiled discrimination that passes as innocuous humor is an outlook quite insidious. This outlook consists of the stereotypes commonly ascribed to older people. In Western, industrialized cultures, like the United States, elderly people are often portrayed as incompetent, asexual, and cognitively impaired. In addition to reducing the quality of life of elders, these stereotypes, when internalized, can affect the way they perceive their own capacities and, effectively, lead to a self-fulfilling prophesy (National Academy of Sciences, 2006).
Further, empirical research has linked stereotypes to how people who hold them will treat members of different social groups, including the elderly (Jenkins, 2018; National Academy of Sciences, 2006). Hence stigmatizing stereotypes of the elderly can, predictably, portend negative treatment outcomes.
According to Dow and Joosten (2012), “The agist stereotypes used in the media, families, and the workplace, encourage and allow elder abuse to occur, as they strip away the dignity and humanity of the individual and encourage the process of ‘othering’”(extract). This may be the case with respect to abuse and neglect of the elderly. According to one 2009 study of 5777 elder respondents, 1 in 10 of these respondents reported emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, or neglect (Acierno, 2010). According to a 2024 statistic by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the same percentage of elders (1 out of 10) are still experiencing some type of abuse (CDC, 2024).
At the same time, elder abuse is among the most underreported types of abuse with projections of only 1 case out of 23 reported to appropriate agencies (Findlaw staff, 2023). This may largely be a result of the vulnerability of many elderly people. They may not have the resources or physical ability to report the abuse. Those who have dementia may not have the cognitive capacity to engage in self-protective behavior. Elderly people, who require the care of another for toileting and dressing may feel shame or guilt due to this deficit of bodily autonomy. They may fear losing the support of their caretakers if they report them. They may be victims of financial exploitation without even being aware of it. They may not have the physical prowess and/or financial resources to survive on their own, hence making disclosure of the abuse appear impractical or self-defeating. They may also suffer from low self-esteem due to having internalized stigmatizing stereotypes about older people (National Academy of Sciences, 2006). Consequently, their vulnerability leaves them destitute of options other than to remain in the hands of their perpetrators. So, they are frequently subject to abuse and neglect while, at the same time, unable to do anything to protect themselves against it.
Employment opportunities also wane for elderly people, even for highly accomplished professionals. According to Victoria Lipnick, former acting chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2018), “Research shows that older workers’ continued denial of equal opportunity often derives from negative stereotypes” (sec. c, discriminatory practices). Due to belief in negative stereotypes, employers may be disinclined to hire elderly applicants, believing them to be incompetent or less competent than younger applicants. They may perceive elders as bad investments, seeing them as about to expire and unworthy of being trained or trusted to perform their jobs efficiently.
Elder Commodification: The Elderly as Defunct Objects
Stereotypes of elderly people as incompetent, or otherwise impaired, belie a systemic social problem. This problem is the commodification of the elderly and then treating them as if they were objects whose worth and dignity have been entirely or almost entirely eviscerated due to their perceived inability to serve a desired function, goal, purpose, or service. Such objectification of persons has been at the core of unjust treatment of targeted groups, from slavery to mass genocide.
Addressing this problem as an ethical transgression, Eighteenth Century philosopher Immanuel Kant (1964) famously admonished us to treat persons, including ourselves, as “ends-in-themselves,” that is, as beings who are worthy of respect, unconditionally. This means regardless of any use or purpose they may or may not serve. Never treat persons, he declared, as “mere means,” that is, as objects to manipulate, use, and dispose of at will (p. 96). This clearly includes those who are no longer vital parts of the workforce, for they too are worthy of respect.
As such, a pressing social challenge lies in the resocialization of America, among other Western industrialized nations that emphasize the human work product, to see the elderly as ends in themselves. This is not likely to be achieved, however, if these societies continue to view them as defunct objects, devoid of worth and dignity. Thus, there is need for reframing what it means to grow old.
Indeed, the mass media bears some responsibility for this problem. From a constructivist perspective, social issues do not come to be squarely perceived as social problems unless society itself views them as such and applies pressure to change existing social institutions (Miller Perrin et al, 2021). The media can be an important catalyst for such change to occur.
Unfortunately, the image of vitality is presently that of a young person, and great efforts are made by the average person to live up to the youthful image propagated by the media and the advertisers from which it draws its revenue. From cosmetics to hide “unsightly” wrinkles to face lifts, human worth and dignity are for sale.
This superficial, skin-deep view of human value skates across the deeper meaning of what it can mean to be an elderly person: the locus of wisdom acquired through many years of experience; the capacity to love and be loved; the many self-sacrificing acts over a lifetime made to secure the future happiness of one’s children; the respect due to one who has served one’s nation with honor; the capacity to empathize with those who now face new challenges that aging presents; and the support due them in this new frontier of life. This is light years apart from how we, as a society, treat the elderly: abandoning them in their time of need, casting them out as defunct shells of what they once were.
Elder Lives Matter
The Golden Rule may be a good start since many who are ageists will relatively soon become aged, and then want the respect that they presently deny others. Conceptualizing aging not as a disease but instead a stage in life that requires no less love and support than any other stage. This is, by far, the most likely antidote to the problem of elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation.
Unfortunately, while there are senior support services, there are no advocacy or political action organizations led by elders, akin to Black Lives Matter, where the theme is “Elder Lives Matter.” “Of course they matter,” is the politically correct response, while we continue to propagate our stereotypes with off-color humor, condescending remarks, and unfair discrimination.
Education can be a key factor in helping to affect much-needed social transformation, starting with elementary school and extending through higher education. Presently, in higher education, courses in geriatrics are unpopular. Students in undergraduate and graduate programs, such as social work, tend to shy away from working with the elderly, largely because of the persistent negative social stereotypes of the elderly being less worthy of support (Miller-Perrin et al, 2021).
Teachers are thus in a prime position to help in the resocialization process. Unfortunately, the trend in education is to hire young teachers and to retire older ones, thus helping to fortify the perception that they have no special knowledge, insight, or experience to impart (Feldman, 2024).
Conclusion
Elderly politicians, such as Biden, who have served their nation faithfully, should not have to apologize for their age. Demeaning stereotypes should not replace evidence in assessing the potential to make valuable contributions to society, or to enrich the lives of friends and family. Our elderly should not live in fear of being abused or neglected by their caretakers as though they were unworthy of care and then placed in the inextricable position of not being able to protect themselves. Nor should the capacity to work, in the first place, be perceived as the essence of human worth and dignity. Our elderly are not defunct objects to be discarded at will.
Kant (1964) referred to humanity as a universal “kingdom of ends,” that is, as mutually bound by a duty to respect one another, such that an assault against one of us is an assault against all, including oneself (pp. 100-101). Our elderly, like other culturally diverse groups, are full-fledged members of this one community of ends, united by our mutual humanity. Unequivocally, the time is now for needed inclusionary social change.
