EveryAGE Counts team member Joel Pringle spoke with Patricia Amphlett and Lex Marinos for theradio program The Baby Boomers Guide to Life in the 21st Century. 

To mark World Elder Abuse Awareness Day 2022, EveryAGE Counts team member Sue McGrath leads this discussion with Susan Cochrane of Relationships Australia and Russell Westacott of Elder Abuse Action Australia (EAAA)

Have you ever had a chance to grill your boss?

EveryAGE Counts team member Joel Pringle interviewed campaign Director and Co-Chair Marlene Krasovitsky on how the EveryAGE Counts campaign understands social change, and our roles in it.  

You can watch the video below.

In 1985, at the age of 21, I was given an HIV+ diagnosis. In the flurry of various medical appointments throughout the following months, one healthcare professional – a counsellor  told me I would probably die within the next ten years. While confronting, the intention was to offer an impetus to plan an enjoyable decade. To some extent it worked. I ditched plans to study in favour of travelling and working overseas. But regardless of what I did in those ten years and what I achieved in the subsequent (almost) three decades later, stigma and discrimination always lurked in the background.

Clearly, I was a beneficiary of successful HIV antivirals that became available in 1996/97. Just as my blood results started to nosedive and keep true to the prediction offered by that counsellor, my doctor and I now had the opportunity to intervene. Many friends, flatmates and work colleagues never made that milestone of medical advancement. To this day, those antivirals  in various combinations over the years have given me life to the age of 58 so far. A testament to science and evidence-based medicine.

Now I am travelling through middle age and approaching my elder years. The mindset of ‘just ten more years’ is ever present – it’s like it has hard wired my brain. Also, because of the early generation of HIV drugs I live with side-effects including type #2 diabetes. Various ailments and morbidities combining have me feeling that an early ageing is descending upon me.

After my diagnosis and up to 2010 I was somewhat shielded from HIV discrimination in the workplace as I worked in the HIV sector conducting HIV prevention and HIV health promotion education, policy and service delivery. Those 25 years empowered me – not only as a gay man but as someone living with HIV. So much so that I was relatively open about my HIV status when I started various roles in the aged rights sector. If my lived experience was relevant to a discussion, then I would share that aspect of my life.

At a particular meeting of stakeholders in the last five years I was frank about my status in the course of conversation. After the meeting I was gently reminded by a colleague that being open about living with HIV in this sector – aged rights – may bring discriminatory consequences. To some degree I was taken aback but the colleague provided some examples of high-ranking people that they knew who were discriminated against in the workplace because of their HIV status. And frightenedly, these were relatively recent examples. That is why I had some trepidation about writing this piece. I can’t help but wonder if this openness will lead to negative outcomes as I move ahead, and new aspects of my life begin to emerge.

Now I am 58, gay and HIV+. As I grow older, I live with the real potential of that intersection being the very nexus of stigma that could be perpetrated by others. I have recently moved to rural NSW… I don’t know how I will be regarded by my new community. I don’t know what this nexus means for me in my professional life. I don’t know what this means as I seek new health services. I don’t know what this means for planning and potentially receiving aged care services ten years from now. I don’t know what this means as my social circle changes and new people come into my life. If anything, growing older raises more questions than answers. Despite being in a loving relationship with my husband and having a roof over our heads – much more than many other people – I worry how I will be treated by others as I grow older. I know too many stories of ageism, too many stories of HIV discrimination and too many stories of bigotry and inequity directed towards LGBTIQ+ people.

What will become of me if – for whatever reason – I can’t rely on the support structures I have today? When I think of the future, I feel vulnerable not secure. Maybe it’s the hard wired ‘ten more years’ or maybe it’s because I see ageism and stigma, too many times, perpetrated against people like me.

Russell Westacott

EveryAGE Counts team member Sue McGrath hosted Yumi Lee, of the Older Women's Network, and Helen Hodgson, of National Foundation for Australian Women and Professor, Curtin Law School, for this discussion to mark International Women's Day 2022.

Resources referred to in the discussion are downloadable below.

Co-Chair of the EveryAGE Counts campaign Robert Tickner spoke with the National Ageing Research Institute on 1 March 2022.

You can watch the video below.

In the article below EveryAGE Counts Senior Policy Advisor Sue McGrath expands on the different forms of ageism, including how we could be reinforcing ageism even when we are well meaning.

EveryAGE Counts' team member Joel Pringle recently recorded this interview with Dr Ralph Hampson of the University of Melbourne. The interview will be used as a resource for post graduate students learning about the interaction between policy and practice, but they've agreed to make the video available here for EveryAGE Counts supporters.

How time flies when you’re having fun as you grow older. That can be said for both the EveryAGE Counts Campaign and me, as well as for our relationship over the past four years. Excitingly, I first heard about the Campaign before it was born, after its conception in the Benevolent Society, which publicly announced its imminent arrival on the basis of a bank of solid research that demonstrated the need for it as well as guiding the development of its key features.

James Cox & Sue McGrath

A clear and compelling message was delivered by a panel of international experts and some of Australia’s leading voices on ageing and work at ‘Still on the job: the case for older workers,’ a forum hosted by the EveryAGE Counts campaign in June.  If we want to change the picture for older Australians who want and need to work, but are currently excluded from employment by ageism, then broad systemic change is needed.

We heard from Mark Keese, OECD and Melissa Grober-Morrow, AARP about Australia’s performance against OECD countries, and from the Australian Age Discrimination Commissioner Dr Kay Patterson and CEPAR researcher Rafal Chomik on the situation in Australia.  A key point for their examinations of older worker participation is that although the number of older people in Australia looking for work has grown markedly over the last two decades, they are not finding work at the same rate. Compared to the rest of the world, Australia’s performance is no more than middling in keeping up with this important demographic change.

Around the world, populations are getting older. In Australia the number of older people (65+) as a proportion of the total population will grow from its current 16% to around 22% by 2050.  Older people will become an increasingly crucial part of the workforce as the proportion of younger people in the population overall and in the workforce declines.

Our ‘ageing population’ is often framed as a problem, but the good news is that we’re healthier in older age than past generations. We can expect to live better for longer and we should be able to work longer if we want or need to. Indeed, access to work for older people is good for health, wealth and well-being. We also know that workforces that include and draw on the strengths of older people are more productive and profitable, and that keeping an older worker does not mean losing a younger one.  Diversity, including age diversity, is good for business.

Unfortunately, many older Australians struggle to find meaningful work, or find themselves underemployed. There might be several reasons for this, but the stereotypes that older workers are past it, or worn out, or don’t have the skills just don’t hold up as legitimate causes. The biggest obstacles to work for older Australians come from negative, ageist attitudes and behaviours towards older people in workplaces and in our communities.

The forum audience shared their own experiences of ageism as their careers advanced or as they sought work as older people. Two types of experience in particular resonated: those of women who have retrained to re-enter the workforce, and those of people who have been advised to upskill and mask their age in order to find work – in each case to no avail. Humiliation, and being told that ‘you are the problem,’ is common. The experience of women also points to the potential for certain groups to be particularly vulnerable to ageism, mixed with other forms of discrimination or exclusion over a working life.

Each worker has some responsibility to prepare for their own employment, but efforts by older people are likely to be futile if workplaces are not interested or incentivised to employ them. For this, comprehensive change is needed, from government anti-discrimination and employment policy to the operation of workplaces and recruitment agencies.

Behind it all is a need to change perceptions about older people. At the moment, policies, practices and prejudices are built on the unfounded idea that older people have out-dated skills, poor health and attitude problems; and that they offer low return on investment. Over and over, research and experience demonstrates that these stereotypes are wrong. These damaging perceptions need to change and with them, the idea that an arbitrary age line is of any value in determining who is capable of and should be allowed to work.

In fact, why not take age out of the equation altogether? Age is not a reliable marker of capability. Workplace policies need to move from implicit and explicit ageist assumptions underpinning decision making to the use of capacity-based frameworks. These changes need to flow from board leadership through recruitment practices and algorithms to staff development, team building and developing age inclusive workplace cultures.

Some of these changes will be slow, but others can happen now to enable today’s older Australians to work and to set the scene for older workers and the economy of the future. There is a lot we can do! We can celebrate and learn from those companies that are leading employers of older people. We can change the automated recruitment algorithms to eliminate ageism and other biases from candidate pools. We can ensure that on the job training is available for everyone. And we can champion the strengths of intergenerational teams and multigenerational workforces.

These changes won’t happen on their own. As the forum chair Robert Tickner told us, it’s up to all of us to call for change. We need to start work now.