"35-year-old crisis": This type of age discrimination is also present in the United States

This social experiment shows that discrimination against the elderly is a common phenomenon in society.

Written by | Chen Jinsong 

Original production of "Look at the World" magazine 

There is a popular concept of "35-year-old crisis" in China, and many employers explicitly stipulate that when recruiting employees, they are limited to under 35 years old. After the age of 35, if a migrant worker does not rise to a higher management position, he will worry that he will be laid off by the company and become a middle-aged unemployed.

Similar ageism exists in the United States. A Bay Area Chinese complained at the forum, he is 43 years old, and the company has laid off 30% of its employees, including him, because of the epidemic. He found that the employees who were laid off were older than him, and those who remained were in their early 30s or younger. He believes he has experienced age discrimination and is considering suing the company.

Princeton University once conducted a social experiment in which subjects were asked to watch a video. Inside was a white man named Max, who was neither handsome nor ugly, wearing a plaid shirt and claiming to be from Hamilton, New Jersey. He describes his personality to the subject, and the subject evaluates it. There are actually three different versions of Max, played by three actors, ages 25, 45, and 75.

"Max" told the same thing, but of the 137 subjects, most gave 25-year-old Max a positive evaluation, 45-year-old Max a negative evaluation, and by 75-year-old Max, almost all negative evaluations. Most people think that 75-year-old Max is conceited and narrow-minded, and the same thing happened to 25-year-old Max, and the evaluation of self-confidence is self-confidence.

This social experiment shows that discrimination against the elderly is a common phenomenon in society. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it usually takes 2 to 6 months longer for older workers to find a new job after they are laid off. The salary of a new job can be significantly lower.

In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a pivotal decision. In 2003, Jake Gross, a 54-year-old FBL financial employee, was transferred from the company's claims management director to claims program coordinator, replacing him with a subordinate in his forties. Gross believes he has suffered age discrimination and has taken the company to court.

An Iowa court found that there was indeed a degree of age discrimination in the transfer, but it was not serious, and awarded the FBL $50,000 in damages to Gross in damages. The FBL insisted that the transfer had nothing to do with age, and just like that, the lawsuit went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court overturned the original decision, holding that the employee must prove that age was the decisive factor in the dismissal in order for the case to stand.

After the ruling, it became much more difficult for employees to win age discrimination cases. After the Gross case, many lawyers chose not to take on age discrimination cases because the likelihood of winning the lawsuit was greatly reduced.

As a minority, Chinese Americans may be more likely to experience ageism in the workplace, and most of them endure it in silence. In Disney's hit TV series "Journey to the West ABC", the father of the male protagonist is like this. After years of quiet dedication in a white-dominated company, seniority and experience were sufficient to rise to management, but the boss promoted a young white man before he retired, not him. His wife kept urging him to resist and fight for his own rights, and this father always used the excuse that it was good to have a job, and escaped again and again, which caused not only a workplace crisis, but also a family crisis.

In the United States, Chinese Americans are often labeled as "model minorities," a label that in many cases has a pejorative connotation, implying that Chinese Americans are unwilling to fight in the face of problems and cannot effectively defend their rights and interests. Although there are constant complaints about similar incidents on Chinese forums, in fact, there are still very few rights defenders.

Who can not be old ↓↓↓