Let’s Talk About Ageism at Work
Recognising bias is step one. Challenging it — together — is step two.
The quiet epidemic of 2025
Scroll any leadership feed and you’ll see talk of multigenerational teams, yet In January 2025, Forbes reported that 99 percent of workers over 40 have encountered ageist behaviour on the job—from jokes about “digital dinosaurs” to outright exclusion from high-profile projects.
For women, that bias is sharper: a global 2024 survey found nearly eight in ten women have been treated differently because of age. The latest AARP pulse survey shows two-thirds of women aged 50-plus have personally experienced age discrimination, and over half were quizzed about age in interviews. Callback rates for women over 50 are 36 percent lower than for men of the same age and background.
Add race or ethnicity and the prejudice compounds, creating the “triple burden” of sexism + racism + ageism.
My story: starting at 40
I’m living proof that “late” is a social construct. At 40, equipped with a white van and two school-aged kids, I restarted my career. I was often the only woman of colour in a room where corporate politics were always at play. Given my age, I frequently encountered scepticism and faced critiques based on assumptions that I might lack understanding of the processes or subject matter involved.
The real translation was a lot simpler: We’re not sure you belong.
Nevertheless, I led initiatives that impacted operations globally. I handed multi million-pound projects. Dozens reported to me. The lesson? Experience has no barrier. I later channelled those same corporate insights into building my own global brand and podcast – both born when I was 57. Competence has no expiry date, but bias does enormous damage while it lingers.
The numbers that should jolt us:
64 % of workers 50 + report age discrimination (AARP, 2025) M
76 % of employees of all genders report age bias during hiring (World Economic Forum, 2024)
£1.5 billion lost annually in the UK from women exiting work due to menopause-linked bias
What it means for women 50+:
Most of us feel the sting before we even hit traditional retirement age
Gatekeeping starts before day one.
Ageism isn’t just unfair—it’s fiscally irresponsible.
The commercial upside of dismantling ageism
With 150 million jobs globally transitioning towards older workers, organisations rarely implement strategies to effectively integrate older workers into their talent pipelines. Regardless of the fact, age-diverse businesses typically observe a 10-15% increase in productivity and experience reduced turnover rates compared to organisations with less diversity.
This is why businesses can’t afford another lost decade
Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2025 flags age diversity as a top-three talent risk. Organisations that ignore it are already struggling to staff AI-heavy roles because they “screen out” the mid-career experts who built their legacy systems. Meanwhile, McKinsey estimates untapped older-worker participation could unlock $5 trillion in global GDP. The evidence says it all – the commercial case is closed.
From awareness to action: six moves that work
1. Rewrite the job ad. Language shapes opportunity. Strip coded words like “digital native,” replace years-of-experience caps with skills, and post salary bands.
2. Audit with intersectionality. Track promotion, pay and project allocation by age + gender + race. Dashboards that hide triple-bias patterns are useless.
3. Invest in reciprocal mentoring. Start a reverse mentoring initiative and partner a Gen Z data engineer with a 55-year-old programme lead; both can cross-coach and gain fluency in the other’s language.
4. Age-proof your AI. Before rolling out hiring algorithms, test datasets for age proxies (graduation year, “up-to-date” tech stacks). The EEOC’s 2025 lawsuit over biased résumé-bots is a cautionary tale.
5. Normalise menopause support. Quiet rooms, flexible hours, and manager training aren’t perks—they’re productivity infrastructure.
6. Sponsor, don’t just mentor. Mid-career women need power brokers who open doors; advice alone doesn’t counter 20 years of bias. Invite women over 50 to co-design your leadership offsites, product test groups, and customer councils. The goal is not tokenism, it is reciprocal learning that converts experience into competitive advantage.
What you can do today
· Leaders: add “age” to your DEI OKRs this quarter.
· Colleagues: challenge “too old” jokes the way you challenge sexist remarks.
· Women 50+: document wins, publicise skills, and refuse to self-censor your birth year on LinkedIn. Visibility dismantles stereotypes.
The road ahead
Ageing populations are the demographic headline of our era, but longevity is only a gift if workplaces evolve with it. I believe the future belongs to organisations that treat experience as the ultimate renewable resource.
Ageism is often called “the last acceptable bias,” but acceptance is a choice. It is within our remit to rewrite the default settings of work. If recognising bias is step one, step two is a collective act of redesign—policy by policy, meeting by meeting, story by story.
If my mid-life career pivot taught me anything, it’s this: bias wilts under the glare of data and storytelling. Together, we’ll prove that talent doesn’t have a sell-by date.