Age Discrimination: An Historical and Contemporary Analysis (review)

The subject of John Macnicol's book is both narrower and broader than its title would indicate: narrower in that its focus is on twentieth-century Britain, with rich comparative coverage of the United States; broader in that it looks not only at age discrimination in terms of attitudes and labor law but also at major issues in the history of aging and retirement in both countries. It historicizes and finds compelling a social scientific literature from the mid-twentieth century that became normative in gerontology and retirement economics. Its comparison between Britain and the U.S. reveals parallels in the framing of socio-economic questions as well as a surprisingly sophisticated approach to retirement and disability in an American political landscape usually characterized by a weak welfare state. Questions of civil rights provided a stimulus for American debate about ageism, while similar issues of demographic aging, technological change, disability, and age discrimination legislation were found on both sides of the Atlantic.

The book begins with definitions of ageism and age discrimination and asks whether movement of older people from the workplace has been a function of discrimination or of economic forces, such as concentration in older, declining industries or lack of skills to compete for jobs in new ones. That question introduces the history of the spread of retirement in the twentieth century. As he has done in a previous book, Macnicol traces the transition from what he calls "infirmity" retirement to "jobless" retirement.1 Whether jobless retirement resulted from large economic forces and decisions by employers or individual choices by aging workers has been a subject of considerable debate. Macnicol summarizes the situation as follows: "Broadly speaking, historical accounts of the spread of retirement can be divided into those that emphasise a decline in the supply of older workers, and those that emphasise a decline in the demand for the labour of older workers … Is retirement a consumer durable that we have 'invented'—or has it been forced upon us as modern capitalist economies have steadily dispensed with the labour of older men?" (pp. 38–39). Macnicol sees the distinction as heuristic and the truth as combining elements of both. Supply-siders" point to greater financial wherewithal and the emergence of a retirement expectation." Thus, retirement is a gain, a promise of leisure, and people retire because they have sufficient income, savings, social security, and projects for late life.

While recognizing merits on both sides of the argument, Macnicol comes down on the demand side of the debate. For him, economies since the 1890s have shed older workers. It is a story of technological change, scientific management, a rise in female employment, and other factors. Any "retirement expectation" is then a matter of adjustment to market displacement rather than free choice. In this context, mandatory retirement is seen as a convenient alternative to assessment of performance by individual workers. But in a world of earlier exit from work, before any mandated age, Macnicol sees mandatory retirement as a red herring. Still, it has been the occasion for discussion of discrimination, and he poses the question: "how far are unequal outcomes by age the product of age discrimination, and how far are they the result of other factors?" (p. 46) Are debates about age discrimination debates about social justice, or are they part of "an attack on the welfare rights of older people," (p. 47) a way of returning them to the workplace? Before addressing that question most directly at the end of the book, Macnicol explores the literature on intergenerational justice, offers a critical look at British New Labour policies, and surveys aspects of the history of old age.

The chapter on justice between generations focuses primarily on debates about health care rationing and provides a theoretical framework for much of the book, but it warns against too abstract an approach. The idea of generations, after all, lumps diverse populations together in age categories, and particular generations exist in specific historical circumstances. The chapter...