Studies suggest that employers discriminate against older workers in hiring, responding less favorably to equally qualified job applicants who are older. Employers may also limit hiring of older workers by including age stereotypes in job ads that signal a preference for younger workers. Evidence from an experimental study shows that older workers are less likely to apply to job advertisements that contain language with ageist stereotypes. The results indicate that this impact is comparable to the direct effects of employer age discrimination in hiring decisions.
One of the primary ways to reduce age discrimination in hiring is by identifying employers who hire a disproportionately low share of older workers who apply for jobs. However, employers may also discriminate by including age stereotypes in job ads that signal a preference for younger workers, thus discouraging older workers from applying for jobs in the first place. Because older workers often transition to new jobs before retiring, age discrimination in hiring can impede their efforts to continue working. This counteracts policies that encourage people to work longer, which will become increasingly important for maintaining the labor force as the population ages.
In this Economic Letter, we describe results from a field experiment showing that job-advertisement language related to ageist stereotypes—even when the language is not blatantly or specifically age-related—substantially reduces the number...
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