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Try our Age Discrimination Quiz
Age discrimination legislation is in force from 1st October 2006. It applies to
employment, training, and adult education although not the provision of goods
and services. It is designed to prevent less favourable treatment on the grounds
of age.
Read the following case studies and decide whether you think they are
permissible under the regulations.
1. Ashok applies for a job with a voluntary organisation working with older
people. He will be 65 in 3 months. He is refused an interview because of his
age.
2. A firm offers employees the opportunity to learn IT skills by doing an ECDL
course. Lynn requests a place on the course but she is refused because at 58 her
employer thinks she will be slow to pick up new skills and she won’t work for
the firm long enough for them to benefit.
3. A florist specialising in weddings advertises for staff with ten years
experience in floral design
4. A firm advertises for a new sales assistant. They ask for someone with two
years experience to join ‘a young and vibrant team’
5. Miriam is fifty and works in an office with people who are much younger than
she is. They often make jokes about her age, saying that she has dementia or
that she is having a hot flush. She has spoken to her manager about it but was
told that she needs to have a sense of humour, that everyone has to accept a bit
of teasing in the workplace
6. Nafysa and Patrick started work on the same day in the café of a large
department store. Nafysa is nineteen and receives less pay than Patrick who is
twenty three, although they do the same job.
7. A production company advertise for an actor for a new TV series. They specify
‘preferably between 25 and 30 years old’
8. Tom is 64 and works in admin. He is due to retire in six months but asks his
line manager if he would be able to stay on for another year. His manager says
no, it isn’t company policy.
9. A small firm advertises a job that says they are looking for an enthusiastic
trainee to join a busy finance department. ‘must have 5 GCSEs ’
10. A firm is cutting down on their workforce and make two staff members in the
same department redundant. Peter (66) and Sian (45) have worked for the firm for
the same length of time. Sian receives a substantial redundancy package but
Peter doesn’t receive anything. The company say they have a policy not to offer
redundancy payments to employees over the age of 65 as they ought to have
retired by that age anyway.
55 plus 
