Abstract

Age discrimination in hiring can pose a significant barrier to extending the work lives of older individuals, many of whom take "bridge" jobs before complete retirement. We study the relationships between ageist stereotypes - as reflected in job ads – and age discrimination in hiring, exploiting the text of 11,420 job ads and differences in callbacks to older and younger job applicants from a previous resume (correspondence study) field experiment (Neumark, Burn, and Button, 2019). We use language processing software to scrape the text of these ads and identify language that conveys or relates to age stereotypes. We test whether employers with less intent of hiring older workers – as captured in the experimental results – used ageist language in their ads or have job requirements that relate to age stereotypes. This process allows us to directly identify, in a field setting, ageist stereotypes that underlie age discrimination.

Light lunch provided for registered participants; please register by 7 September, 10:00 a.m. (registration link below seminar title)