Podcast: Does age discrimination exist in the tech industry?

00:00 
Keith Shaw: While the technology job market remains vibrant, for many workers, those over the age of 50 are finding it more difficult to get a new job or pass the layers of hiring processes these days where subtle and not so subtle approaches and forms of ageism are creeping in on this episode of today in tech, we're going to discuss why ageism and age discrimination still exist in the corporate world, as well as how this affects older technology workers. Hi, everyone. Welcome to today in tech. I'm Keith Shaw. I'm honored to welcome my guest, Christina Matz, Ph.D., and associate professor in the Boston College School of Social Work, chair of the older adults and families department, and director of the Center on Aging and work at BC. Thanks for joining me on the show today.
 
 
00:47
Christina Matz: Thanks for having me.
 
00:48
Shaw: You have a lot of different positions at BC. That's impressive. So let's talk about the tech industry in general. They tend to have younger workers compared to maybe with the general workforce. For example, in the US, 14% of tech workers are in that age bracket of 55 to 64 compared with 17% of the general workforce. So you usually see older workers, more older workers in general workforce, and younger in the tech industry. Does this indicate to you that there might be some more ageism in the tech industry than from other sectors? Or do you generally see that happening across the workspace?
 
01:23
Matz: I mean, yes, and yes. So there's ageism. Is really rampant in the workplace, in all forms of jobs, and I would say it's particularly prevalent in the IT industry, the tech industry.
 
01:38
Shaw: What makes it more more prevalent is it? I mean, there's a number of different factors where you start seeing ageism. So do you want to go over some of the areas that you've seen, or I could give you some examples of some anecdotes that we've seen too?
 
01:52
Matz: Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of reasons for it. I think that, first of all, in general, we live in a very youth-centric culture, where old is bad and young is good. And I think that sometimes those dichotomies are emphasized within the tech space, because the pace of it, and the new technologies coming out all the time, and being associated with youth, who are innovating around these spaces with Facebook and you know, all of these other young entrepreneurs that have come onto the scene, and so I think it's perpetuated a lot of already existing age stereotypes, right?
 
02:29
Shaw: It feels like you get the hot skills are always the ones that appeal more to maybe younger workers. You know, data science, artificial intelligence, you start to see that those are generally seen as the younger skills, but what's interesting is that this hasn't just happened, right? I remember, my stepmother was a COBOL programmer, and that's the one program she learned and learned and learned, and eventually that fell out of out of favor, until Y2K when all of a sudden they realized all these mainframes were being programmed with COBOL, and they're like, Oh, well, we need some people to actually do this. So she was able to get some work during that time period. So it's never, it's not just a new thing that we're seeing this is, it's always seen as the hotter skills are more for younger workers, right?
 
03:19
Matz: Well, I think that there has been that stereotype and that bias. Because oftentimes tech companies might be marketing jobs looking for younger people who have just recently been trained on the newest technology, just coming out of school, having learned some of these newest technologies. And so I think it's perpetuated that bias. It's always existed, like these negative stereotypes that as you get older, you're less able to learn new technologies, and that you're less willing to learn new technologies, and all of that, which is , I think that we've seen employers double down on that in the tech industry, which is problematic and largely unfounded.
 
04:06
Shaw: Now, especially within the IT and the tech space where you might be hiring an IT worker, there also seems to be a disconnect between understanding what a tech worker does and maybe the HR department who's hiring them. Now, as an HR person, do you have to know every -- it's relatively easy to understand what a salesperson does right, or a marketing person, or someone in finance, maybe even finance and accounting might have some very, very technical skills. But with tech workers, as an HR person, how do I know whether this person has those skills or not?
 
04:40
Matz: Yeah, that can be harder to you know if HR is the first screener of applications, and they're not understanding really, what the technical skills that are needed are, and the variety of different ways that it could be talked about in a resume, or the ways in which those skills could be hit on that they don't recognize. So I think that AI screening for job candidates also presents that problem, if they're really not able to hone in in the variety of ways that skills could be embedded in different types of tasks. And they don't understand what to look for, what the language is.
 
05:17
Shaw: So that's why we end up with keyword matching and screening systems that just look for keywords. Yeah, a few years ago, I was, I was in the job market, looking for new work, and that's the first thing they told us, was find the job description and make sure you've got the same keywords. You don't even change a word. You just basically match so that you get past that first level of computerized screening as well.
 
So why do companies tend to get away with ageism more than some of these other Diversity, Equity and Inclusion categories? If this was a race-based discussion or a gender-based discussion, there would be red flags going up all over the place, but yet it seems to be accepted now to discriminate based on someone's age.
 
06:08
Matz: Absolutely. I mean, I think that within the Gerontology field, it's pretty well recognized that ageism is seen as one of the last standing acceptable “-isms”, right? And that people will not call each other out for being ageist. They will be ageist towards themselves, right? We've got aisles full of cards with ageist jokes in them right at CVS birthday cards. And people will make fun of their age all of the time and call themselves negative stereotypes around aging, or insinuate that they're losing their memory due to age, and all of these things are acceptable to some extent. And so I think that it's problematic, because there's a lot of ways that it really negatively damages people, not only in the workplace, but more broadly, and also really hurts people individually. If you're self stereotyping, you're going to be less likely to try to go for that position that you don't think you're going to get, or that position that you feel like you have a good fit for the skills, but you might not be feeling confident enough to get it because of internalized age stereotypes.
 
07:28
Shaw: So should that be a tip for people that are looking to avoid ageism? Is to stop joking about how old you are amongst either your co-workers or colleagues, or don't go into the job interview and start going, like,”Oh, I can't remember. Oh, it must be the the ADD kicking in, or the Alzheimer's kicking in”, don't do that, right?
 
07:48
Matz: Absolutely. And think about what stereotypes you possess of aging yourself. I think a lot of people, if they think about it for a little bit, realize that they have these negative stereotypes. If you can catch it when they come up and become more aware of it in yourself, it will change your perspective. A really common one is the underhanded compliment, “You look good for your age.” There's this whole advertising campaign out there that's about looking at that phrase, you look good for your age, and flipping it around so people realize how much of a backhanded compliment that is, and how if you applied it to any other marginalized social identity, that would be really problematic.
 
08:49
Shaw: So one thing when I'm thinking about this topic it does come up, is it acceptable because you can get away with age discrimination by tying it to experience and salary? For example, someone with more experience is going to be older because they've got 10, 20, 23, 25 years of experience, and so they're going to expect a bigger salary. So a company can come in and go, “We don't want to pay that money for this position, and deal with it that way, where they can get away with being ageist without necessarily saying it like that.”
 
09:31
Matz: Yes, I think that that is it can be part of it. I mean, basically chronological age doesn't correlate with a whole lot. It's not a good proxy for a whole lot, and we use these arbitrary age cutoffs, or suggest certain things that just most of the time aren't true. As we age, the variation in our experiences, and the extent to which people do or don't have X, Y and Z skills or experiences they bring are just so much more diverse. So you can't make assumptions based on chronological age.
 
10:10
Shaw: I never feel the age that I currently am. The only time I feel it, and again, this is gonna be a self- deprecating joke, is when I walk down the stairs and my knee starts to hurt, and then that triggers my, “Oh, I must be getting old.” Should I say that to myself, not to anybody else around me?
 
10:29
Matz: Well, it’s interesting because there's this advocate, Ashton Appleby. She's an anti-ageism advocate, and she, in one of her TED talks, says, I can't attribute my one knee being problematic due to age, because my other one is fine. So these types of things could happen at any age. While there are certainly some things that are more likely to happen as we age, there's also huge amounts of experience, and you've encountered various issues before, you're more likely to be able to see the systemic issues that have happened around technology issues. This idea of experience and age, it's two sides to the coin, because it can be a huge strength to have that experience. You've seen it. You've seen a lot of things, most of the time. As we age, we come become better at our jobs. We're mastering our credits.
 
11:38
Shaw: That’s the theory at least, right? You're supposed to be better your job.
 
11:41
Matz: On the other hand, it might not always be that older workers will demand a higher salary. You know, there's a lot of older workers in a variety of different positions who might want part-time workers willing to take a different a lower salary in exchange for a more flexible workplace. So just making any assumptions based on age and that they they'll be too expensive – all of these things is not well advised.
 
12:16
Shaw: Yes, the word I really hate when I hear it, is overqualified, it feels like companies use that word to help justify them not hiring someone because they've got in their mind that this position is going to be X, Y and Z, and you need to fit that salary, and not thinking about well, if you brought in someone who had more skills you would get those benefits from that worker, and you wouldn't have to worry about some of the things that you do with younger workers. So I feel like they should eliminate that word as well, but that’s the reason that they give. “Well, you're just overqualified for this position.” It's like, “Well, I'm applying for that position, right? I understand exactly it's going to come with a lower salary. I'm willing to do that because I want that full-time job.” But we also see this on the, I don't say it's reverse ageism, but on the younger side, college graduates often struggle with trying to find work, because, again, companies put these unrealistic expectations. We're going to have an entry level position, which you have to have three to five years of experience, right? And you know these college kids that are coming up, and I talk to them and they're like, “What am I supposed to do?” They face the same type of roadblocks, but in a different age group, right?
 
13:33
Matz: Absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of research suggesting that the people who experience the highest levels of ageism are older workers and the younger workers, the youngest workers just coming out because of the reasons that you mentioned, and so it's hard, and I think in general, just not pitting people of different ages against each other. And you know
 
14:02
Shaw: Is that like the generational warfare you might hear a lot about where it's Millennials versus Gen X, and Gen X versus Boomers, or now you've got Gen Z entering the workforce, and so that's a bad thing?
 
14:15
Matz: Absolutely. I think that there's plenty of research out there that shows that age-diverse teams are the most successful teams. So to be able to capitalize on people across the lifespans, experience and skills is really important. When we do things like make it difficult for younger workers to get in the workplace, but it's oftentimes would be blamed on older workers taking those jobs, right? And they're we're just pitting the generations against each other, or people of different age groups, and it's just not a productive way of approaching the type of workforce that you want.
 
14:57
Shaw: I’ve got an example here, this was an anecdote sent in to us when we were asking our audience to give us some stories, and this was an example of this overqualified part. So the person writes in, “An interview in late 2023 was also surprising. The hiring manager was running the video production group, but had limited professional experience. When I was not hired the HR rep and I talked about why, she stated that the hiring manager was concerned about her own job and how my experience may jeopardize it.” This is an experience issue versus an age issue. But again, they're tied to so closely together. So we hear about this a lot, maybe bad managers feel that they're not good enough in their job, or that they feel under-qualified for this job, and so they don't want to hire anyone who could potentially take their job from them. Do you see that a lot?
 
15:46
Matz: I don't know that I see it a lot, but I think that definitely that spoke to internalized ageism to some extent, right? And people feeling like I'm going to be replaced and feeling threatened by an older worker in this case, but it could be just as easily by a younger worker who had different skills. So I think that it also speaks to pitting people against each other, feeling like they're fighting for limited resources or something. So I think that in culture, workplace cultures that really do a good job of being age inclusive, they're mitigating those types of fears where people are.
 
16:38
Shaw: Is it hard for a hiring manager to go beyond hiring people that are like them, and it's not just age that we're talking about here, too. This can creep into the race and gender right discussion as well. It just feels like, ”Well, I'd feel more comfortable if I had a group of people that were exactly like me, yes, but even, not even, not even looking and feeling, but also same types of experiences, same types of drive, same types of energy.” It must be tough for a hiring manager to step outside that box and go, “No, no, we need you to see all the different types of people that are out there.”
 
17:18
Matz: Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to do. It's also oftentimes coded as a workplace culture, culture fit right, right.
 
17:27
Shaw: Culture fit to me always feels like, “Well, we need someone from the age of 20 to 28, right? And they all need to join the company softball team. And they all go out for drinks afterwards,” And then that discriminates against the people who have families and are just trying to raise their kids. There's all sorts of issues there.
 
17:47
Matz: Exactly, marketing, yeah, these team building exercises in these workplaces that are really geared around social events and team building and all of that, it eliminates certain workers.
 
18:06
Shaw: Also I roll my eyes for those types of things, because again, I'm going to use the stereotype, but I'm a Generation X-er, and we just roll our eyes at everything. I'm seeing that my youngest daughter, too, she rolls her eyes at everything, but that's a teenage thing too. Another question, do you see ageism more by companies in the hiring process, or do you see it within the company after you have a workforce? Do you have a lot of older workers who are still in a job? Do you see subtle ageism?
 
18:38
Matz: I do. The research suggests that it's really prevalent. We hear from more people who are trying to get jobs and are being turned away. There's some statistics out there that say that 61% or a little over 61% of workers see or have experienced age discrimination on the job, but then 75% of older workers have experienced it in the job application process, and so it's very prevalent, right? It's interesting, because the age discrimination laws start at age 40, right? But in the tech industry, it's an open secret that you're considered old when you're 35.
 
19:27
Shaw: Wow, wow. I didn't know that.
 
19:29
Matz: So it really can be driven by the sector and what the perceptions are around that particular work.
 
19:45
Shaw: My example of the company softball team, could be a subtle form of ageism, if you send out the email and there's someone who's 55 or 56 who wants to join the team, and the teammate goes, “Well, we'll I guess you'll be catcher,” or they have tryouts, or it's been a while since I've joined the company softball team in my job. But again, that always feels like that's just a younger person type of experience and like, why don't we have bowling teams? I'm doing the stereotypes like, OK, well, we'll do the company pickleball team. I’m being ageist right now. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Christine.
 
20:27
Matz: I know. Well, I'm thinking to myself, I know a lot of people who are in the 50s and 60s who are doing pickleball a lot and running marathons. But also, it's not even just the age in and of itself that people might feel excluded from some of those activities. If you're in the middle of child rearing, and you've got young, young kids, you might not be able to be available 24/7 to participate in these after work things. There's just a variety of different things that excludes people of different circumstances. It really hones in on the 21 to 30 age group, who are more likely to be available and up for those types of activities.
 
21:13
Shaw: If there was a company that had a ping pong table, for example, I'd be really good, because I'm really good at ping pong. But again, that's sort of fallen out of favor. I don't know if they have a lot of ping pong tables at companies anymore, but that's something where I don't have to worry about it, where I do have to worry a little bit about the softball team.
 
I want to get back to the job hiring and the job application process. If you're a job seeker and you're over the age of 35 now, if you're a tech worker, or if you're over 40. Is it the responsibility of the job seeker to start hiding certain words in their resumes? You know, don't clue in on how old you are? There's another example I've got where someone was talking about ageism, and he says, “Oh, I guess it's time to dye my hair.” Or is it more on the companies for us to to hold their feet to the fire on this, please don't do this. Yeah? Or is it a mixture of both?
 
22:08
Matz: As a as a gerontologist and as a human I feel like it's not great to tell people to hide aspects of their personality in the job application or job search process. I know that it's being recommended a lot, to take dates off your resume, to not suggest when you graduated from college and things like that, dye your hair, those types of things. But I think we really need to be educating employers about ageism as a huge concern as part of DEI strategies really needs to be included, which oftentimes it's not. Oftentimes you look at people's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategies, and they say nothing about age and so really encouraging employers to really think about ageism in the workplace and advocating for doing things to mitigate ageism, is really where we need to go.
 
But also I think that there's other things that potential employees can do to talk about the whole person approach that they can bring to the workplace. And really, I think that the tech industry, and you know much more about this than I do, but I feel like the tech industry really is needs more talent that has soft skills, critical thinking, empathy, like these uniquely human skills that can be brought to this rapidly changing tech space, especially with AI. How can we position the communication skills, critical thinking skills and other skills that can be brought to the job, as opposed to dyeing our hair.
 
24:08
Shaw: Are softer skills something that are acquired more as you get older, as you get that experience? Or is that is it just depending on your personality type?
 
24:22
Matz: Yes, more experience in the workforce and dealing with a variety of different types of tasks, maybe being in some positions, in more leadership positions. You develop those skills. Critical thinking skills, other leadership skills come with time. Oftentimes the youngest, newest employees haven't developed those yet. So in some senses, I would argue that a lot of people as they age, have learned new technologies many times along the way. It's easier to pick up new technology than to pick up quickly these communication skills, this in-depth knowledge of the industry, other soft skills, and it really takes time to do that, whereas, at this point in a tech person's career, they've been able to pick up new technologies, and there's no reason to think that they wouldn't be able to pick up the newest.
 
25:32
Shaw: I do feel like at some point though, the rate of the rate of willingness to learn a new technology does dwindle. I used to write a technology column for Network World and I was always into the latest stuff, latest gadgets, latest, latest, latest technologies. I knew how to network my home, all this stuff. Now I've gotten to that point where social media, TikTok and Instagram just go right over my head, and I see my kids doing it, and I ask them for help, and they're like, Nah, Dad, don't worry about it. Just do your thing. Then I feel old again.
 
26:11
Matz: It’s this cycle of other people having these perceptions, it being everywhere, these ideas that people can't pick up these new technologies, and then it becomes internalized and reinforces it.
 
26:29
Shaw: I feel like this is a therapy session for me.
 
26:33
Matz: There is some literature out there that suggests that as people age, they're a little bit slower to learn new technology But it's not a huge amount slower.
 
26:53
Shaw: Well, there's that old cliche, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, so that's ingrained in our DNA to accept that. You're saying that we shouldn't, right? We can teach you, you might just have to teach it in a different way, or teach it in a in a way that they understand it.
 
27:09
Matz: Well, first, there's two things. It might take a little bit longer, but they're complemented by a whole variety of other skills that they possess, individuals who are a little bit older, for example, or a lot older. But then also, one reason why I think a lot of people have not been able to keep up with different technologies and skills is because there's ageism within the workplace around learning and promotion opportunities, and sometimes all of the training and opportunities for new learning and development are focused on the younger employees, and not the older employees. If there's continuous learning within an agency, it really can mitigate a lot of these problems.
 
27:57
Shaw: We're having this discussion about ageism as it exists now in 2024, but this is something that's been around for 40, 50, 60, years. I remember my father, after he turned 40 he started experiencing a lot of these things. Is there anything different now than maybe then back then, 40, 50, years ago. What's changed? Why is this topic raised up again?
 
28:27
Matz: One thing that comes to mind is that during the pandemic, and there's some evidence to suggest this, during the pandemic there was a backslide in ageism, we saw a reemergence of it, to some extent, because older workers, older individuals were seen as frail and needing to be protected and that they shouldn't be in the workplace. A lot of the progress that we've made in terms of positive aging and reframing the way we see aging, we saw a little bit of a backslide during Covid, and that has continued to some extent. I don’t know that we're fully out of the woods.
 
29:22
Shaw: Was it, “We don't want to hire this person because they might be more vulnerable to a virus if there's another pandemic,” or things like that, “We don't want to make sure that they're not that we hire them and then we're not going to kill them.”
 
29:34
Matz: I don't think it's necessarily that anymore, but I think it's carried over, because a lot of older workers had to leave the workforce during that time, and maybe are having a harder time getting back in right and then it might have reinforced some of those stereotypes.
 
29:54
Shaw: I know you brought this up earlier that we the pitting of the generations against each other, but I want to ask this one question. We are finding that a lot of the baby boomers that, in a traditional sense, would be retired or be starting to retire right now, and a lot of them are staying in the workforce, so that prevents a lot of the younger generations from getting ahead or getting promoted. Does that cast a shadow over this whole ageism thing as well, because you don't have certain positions open?
 
30:33
Matz: Well, we have a graying workforce, an aging workforce. I think Japan has 40% workers over age 55 now, and Europe and the U.S. is not far behind, and it's partly because of the lower fertility rates, but also because of longer periods of education and things like that. Just demographically, it's going to there's a higher median age and there's more people in the older age cohort who either need to work longer or want to work longer, or leaving the workforce and coming back on, retiring. Again, we don't want to pit generations against each other, but I think that more and more workplaces are going to really need to think about this issue of age and how they're going to be open to age, inclusion, and how they're going to use it as a way to have a competitive advantage.
 
31:49
Shaw: Do you think that this issue will get better as we raise more awareness of it, or as more people are aware of this? Or is this something that it will rise and fall, or it will go through a cycle of, OK, well, this is always going to be there, no matter, because everybody ages.
 
32:06
Matz: Well, yes, your point of everybody ages, it's one reason why it makes it interesting, the whole idea of ageism, because you're discriminating against your future self to some extent, right? If you think you know, and maybe the answer, I don't know if it's going to get better. I know that the demographics are the demographics, and we see the graying workforce. So we have to spread awareness and really think about what that's going to look like moving forward with all of these tech changes. But also as people become more aware of this issue of ageism and think about it from the perspective of discrimination against your future self. So how do I feel that in 10 years from now, what things do I want in place so that I'm able to continue doing the work that I love, and for jobs to be there for me? I think that with increasing awareness, I hope that it will get better.
 
33:21
Shaw: I just thought of another example of why companies might not want to hire an older person, and it's the whole healthcare benefits angle to it, where, if you're a company and you're paying for part of an employee's healthcare plan and health benefits, an older employee is more likely to have health issues than a younger employee. But is that a stereotype too? Because you never know, some younger people go to the doctor more than some older people do. Is that in the back of the mind of a hiring manager as well? Or should they not even think about that?
 
33:55
Matz: It does play a role in that equation. That's why there's so many well health and wellness programs within workplaces out there, because the costs associated with the heaviest users of the insurance programs are so high. But that's not always the older employees. There's this perception that it's the oldest employees in the company that are really driving up health care costs, and there's been a lot of research on whether health and wellness programs and other programs within the workplace can help to mitigate those costs, but it really isn't. It really isn't solely driven by the age of the workforce. There's a lot of factors that go into that.
 
34:53
Shaw: I’ve got one more story that I want to tell you tell on the show here, when I was unemployed the last time, I had to go to a government thing with the unemployment office and they were doing seminars. And one of the seminars was how to get a job over 40 or after the age of 40, and the first thing that the speaker came in, or the teacher came in and handed everybody a list of places that offer senior discounts if you're over the age. You could get a free cup of coffee at McDonald's if you're over the age of 55 and I looked at this list, this is not helping me at all. Even in the in the space where people are trying to help other people get jobs, should I have been offended by that? I thought it was funny, but I was also somewhat offended that they would hand this out. This is not a seminar for me of where I could get free stuff. It's more about I want to know how I can get hired.
 
35:56
This was the state of Massachusetts that was doing this. This was seven years ago. I hope they stopped that. I think I put that in my feedback form. Don't hand out that list.
 
36:05
Matz: There's a lot of mixed messages out there around age, and so it's hard for people to make sense of it, like, should I be worried about my age, should I not be right? That was a mixed message.
 
36:25
Shaw: Christina Matz, thank you so much for being on the show today. It was great discussion.
 
36:31
Matz: Yes, thanks for having me. It was great.