Physician Robert Butler coined the term ageism in 1969, comparing prejudice against older people to racism and sexism. Two years earlier, Congress had passed the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which bans job discrimination against workers aged 40 and older. Ageism can also target young people, who are often dismissed as too inexperienced to be taken seriously.
Ageism shows up in hiring, layoffs, health care and media. Older workers who lose jobs often take longer to find new ones, and age bias is hard to prove in court. In health care, older patients' symptoms may be written off as normal aging.
Ageism interacts with racism. Black and Latino workers are more likely to hold physically demanding jobs and to reach retirement with less savings, because of wage and wealth gaps built over a lifetime. Black Americans also have shorter life expectancies, so policies that raise the retirement age cut more deeply into their years of benefits. Anti-racist work treats age as one more axis of power.