October 9 is Ageism Awareness Day. Like any awareness day, its purpose is to call attention to a problem and inspire people to take action. That action starts with the recognition that ageism is real, that it harms older adults and society as a whole, and that the time has come to understand the importance of older adults to the American economy, culture, and social fabric.

What Is Ageism?

Ageism is the discriminatory belief that a person who has lived a certain number of years — typically 60 or more — is no longer useful, capable, or vital. Ageism is the embrace of negative stereotypes about older adults. Ageism leads to the discriminatory exclusion of seniors from employment positions, group memberships, and positions of leadership without regard to the contributions that they can make.

Ageism is difficult to combat because, in the words of the National Institutes of Health, ageism is “one of the last socially acceptable prejudices.” Ageism is invidious because, left unchallenged, it encourages older adults to internalize stereotypes and to experience a diminished sense of self-worth.

Negative Stereotypes of Aging

Stereotypes encourage people to view those who share a particular trait as if they are all the same. In fact, older adults — just like younger adults — have varied abilities. There is no magic age at which people become frail, forgetful, or grumpy.

While reaction times tend to increase with age, older drivers have gained experience that allows them to drive safely by anticipating and avoiding problems rather than reacting to them. Older drivers are also less likely to take risks than younger ones. In defiance of stereotypes, drivers in their 60s are the safest drivers on the road, while drivers over the age of 80 have fewer accidents per mile than drivers under 30.

Some cognitive abilities actually improve with age. One study found that seniors were better than middle-aged individuals at orienting their attention and ignoring distractions.

While the image of a grumpy old man shaking his fist and yelling at kids to “get off my lawn” is enduring, research suggests that adults tend to become more agreeable as they grow older, in part because they have learned how to regulate their emotions. Evidence suggests that mental health usually improves with age. Happiness, in particular, tends to decline in middle age and increase in later adulthood.

Harms of Ageism

Apart from encouraging older adults to internalize stereotypes and feel bad about themselves, ageism has serious societal consequences. A preference for “fresh blood” squeezes older adults out of the workplace, even when they are still fully productive. The business world thus loses skilled, contributing workers who often labor more efficiently and diligently than their younger counterparts.

Ageism in the medical industry may influence treatment decisions. For example, a physician may assume that an older patient is too frail to tolerate aggressive cancer therapies and might not present options that the patient would want to explore. In the educational setting, professors might view older students as filling time in their retirement years rather than regarding them as serious scholars.

Fighting Ageism

Professor Becca Levy, one of the researchers who found that seniors can suffer from exposure to negative stereotypes, also learned that people who are exposed to positive attitudes about aging tend to be physically, emotionally, and cognitively healthier as they age.  She discovered that images of older people in the media and the nature of jokes about aging vary from culture to culture. Older people who have a “cultural diet” that values aging tend to live longer and have healthier diets than those who live in a culture that denigrates old age.

While it will take time and a concerted effort to rid the media of ageist stereotypes, each of us can do our part by removing ageist rhetoric from our conversations. When someone jokes that an older colleague is suffering from dementia because he made a mistake, responding with “that’s not funny” rather than a chuckle will send a necessary message. SeniorCareAdvice discussed other strategies for fighting ageism here.

The starting point for an anti-ageism revolution lies in spreading the word that ageist stereotypes are harmful. Ageism Awareness Day advances that goal, but the battle against ageism should be waged every day.