UOW study reveals workplace discrimination

15 Jul 2008 | Kate McIlwain

Older people, especially women, are less likely to be promoted or trained at work, or employed at all, according to a new study. UOW PhD graduate, Dr Barry Partridge, has shown that older men and women are less likely to be employed, promoted, or trained due to negative stereotypes associated with their age.

Dr Partridge completed his degree in 2007 and is due to graduate this Friday July 18. At 68, he is one of the oldest graduates from a doctoral research degree in Australia, proving that people can continue to excel at work at any age.

“I started a PhD ten years ago when I was working as a manager in an Australian company and had come in contact with a number of people who had been displaced from their jobs,” Dr Partridge said.

“I couldn’t help but notice the trouble they were having getting back into work. The group consisted largely of older job searchers and I decided to find reasons for their unemployment problems.”

During the study Partridge interviewed 99 managers from companies including an international airline, a major energy provider, an international telecommunication company, a finance organisation, a large State Government Department and a NSW Local Government organisation.

Potential employees were divided into three age groups of young (early 20s), mid-aged (30 – 45) and old (45+) and were also divided by gender. The managers were asked questions about how they would feel about employing, promoting or training these people.

The results of the interviews, which were analysed using a tool from clinical psychology, the Repertory Grid, showed a clear positive bias to younger people and a negative bias towards older ones. For example, employers’ decisions to employ younger females were 63% positive, but their decisions to employ older females were only 43% positive.

The bias found in the study was also more positively geared toward men. When asked about promoting employees, managers’ decisions were 54% positive for older men, but 61% negative for older women. Training decisions on older females were 57% negative.

“For some reason, many people don’t believe that older females are capable of learning, which is nonsense,” Dr Partridge said.

“It doesn’t make good business sense for managers to deny people in their organisations training opportunities on the basis of peoples’ age,” Partridge said.

“Similarly, selecting between job applicants on the basis of job irrelevant criteria such as differences in perceived age or gender related characteristics is clearly wrong at a time where we have national skills shortages and organisations are importing skilled people at great cost.”

The good news is that Partridge’s study shows that once identified, discrimination based on age and gender can be reversed.

“In 2007, I successfully used the methodology outlined in the PhD to improve workplace communication in a large Australia-wide organisation,” he said.

Dr Partridge said that once people’s discriminatory ideas have been identified, they can be pointed out and reversed.

“Discrimination forms a natural part of decision-making, however the criteria underpinning such decisions can be flawed,” he said. “We can do a variety of psychological exercises that make people aware of their discriminatory decisions and this generally has a positive effect on changing those decisions.”

Dr Partridge is currently the Director of workplaceimages.com which has been set up to identify discrimination and reduce its impact on communication practices at work. He will graduate with a Doctor of Philosophy on Friday, July 18 at 9.45am.