Reinforcing ageism in the labour market
Tony Abott’s article: Putting unemployed back into the workforce (The Australian, 31 March 2011) presents as yet another example of ageist thinking at the core of current Liberal labour market policy. In his article he states that ‘sometimes governments have to be firm to be fair. Allowing people to stay on welfare when there is work they can reasonably do is the kindness that kills. It’s the misguided compassion that eventually breaks down the social fabric, as the more perceptive Aboriginal leaders have long recognised’. Oddly, if this is indeed ‘misguided compassion’ he seems happy to apply it to older people.
He reminds us that before the last election, the Coalition proposed a job commitment bonus scheme for long-term unemployed people under 30 who found a job and kept it. He also notes that another policy that the Coalition took to the election was an incentive payment for employers who hired welfare-dependent people over 50. ‘Not only would this make older people more employable’ he states ‘but it would also help overcome some employers’ reluctance to take on more mature workers’. The evidence for this assertion is simply absent. Moreover, by drawing attention to older workers in this fashion he may be alerting employers to the need to be wary of a particular segment of the workforce whose deficiencies are so great that they depend on government subsidies to find a job. Hardly a positive message, yet to this he now adds two more attempts at age-based policymaking.
In his article he also proposes Making Work for the Dole mandatory for people under 50 and receiving unemployment benefits for more than six months and suspending unemployment benefits for people under 30 in areas where there are shortages of unskilled labour. He does not elaborate on why the over 50s are special in this regard and risks feeding stereotypes of young people as lacking the work ethic. He states that ‘encouraging more people into work has important economic consequences. And attracting more people into the workforce is likely to improve the country’s morale and to help people to feel more comfortable in their own skins because most people derive much of their sense of self from what they do. It’s a good social policy as well as an important economic advance’.
However, is age-based policy making the answer? And do we help older or younger workers by devising specific schemes for them? The answer is probably not. Chronological age is of limited value in determining the employment-related needs of an individual, and public programs that use it as a selection criterion may send the wrong message to employers, workers and society as a whole.
Such an approach is clearly simplistic, definitions such as ‘mature age worker’ being almost entirely arbitrary. Campaign groups have frequently argued for special schemes for unemployed older workers, but it is usually difficult to see much in these that would not be equally applicable to people of all ages. Approaches as proposed by the Coalition risk deepening age prejudice and institutionalising age discrimination, against both young and old. They are, by their very nature, ageist, and can further erode self-esteem by categorising people as ‘difficult to employ’ or ‘workshy’. The Australian workforce would benefit from evidence-based labour market policy and in this regard Tony Abbot’s proposals do not stand scrutiny. Instead of presenting a positive vision of older and younger people’s potential contribution to the workforce the Coalition’s approach risks reinforcing the prejudices of a society that we know is already obsessed with age.