Introduction
Ageism is an issue that isn't addressed enough that is why we have chosen to do our report on the problem. What is ageism you may ask, well Ageism involves discriminating against people based on their age, this can occur both in the workplace and in your personal life. It typically applies to people who are older but can also affect young people. Ageism has a negative impact on physical and mental health, and reports link it with earlier death.
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Ageism originated In 1968 when Dr. Robert Butler coined the term “ageism” to describe the systematic discrimination against older people. He equated it to racism and sexism during the Civil Rights movement.
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Why is ageism so bad? Ageism has a negative impact on physical and mental health, and reports link it with earlier death. One study found people with a positive outlook on ageing lived a median of seven and a half years longer compared to those who thought negatively. The thoughts can translate to behaviours.
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How does ageism affect the globe? Why does ageism affect things all across the globe? How is ageism a massive global problem? Among older people ageism is associated with poorer physical and mental health, increased social isolation and loneliness, greater financial insecurity, decreased quality of life and premature death. An estimated 6.3 million cases of depression globally are estimated to be attributable to ageism.
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Why should we stop ageism? Because of such misconceptions about older people, old age and ageing shape how older people are thought of and treated by their society, and greatly hurt their social inclusion and the enjoyment of their human rights.
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If it is really so bad, we should be doing something about it, so how are ways that we can prevent it? Well, we got 3 solutions to that question. Speaking up, teaching people and punishing people.
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Our 1st solution is speaking up. Speaking up can help a lot in some cases. When you see someone doing something wrong, you will most likely say stop it or don’t do that. This is what speaking up or standing up for someone or yourself is. People do intend to stop, but this is where the cons come in. This is mostly a short term solution. If it does work it can go from a few minutes to as long as a day or so. Sometimes their whole life. But, there are cases where it might not even do anything. That’s the con of speaking up.
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Our 2nd solution is teaching people. Teaching is the most common way to learn something. I mean at school teachers teach us, at home our parents teach us, at your friends house maybe your friend can teach you something. Like this, it is the most common way to learn and so why not use teaching to prevent ageism from happening?I mean people will most likely stop. But this also has its cons. Teaching may be the most common way to learn something but like school, there are people who don’t like getting taught and go against it. This can result in people being more ageist. Just like schools where people violate rules given to them.
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Our final solution is punishment. Everyone has at least been punished once in their life for doing something wrong and after getting punished, most people normally stop doing it after being punished. That right there is a pro. But with pros, there are cons. There are people who don’t really care and they might keep doing it. But overall punishment is a good solution and let us see which one won.
Conclusion
We then put these 3 solutions into a PMI chart and rated it from 1 to 5. 1 being the best and 5 being the worst in 5. Prevention, effectiveness, time, people and cost. In conclusion, we came up with punishment as our thesis. It had the lowest score in our PMI shown in the photo which means it’s a good thing. We think punishing people is the best idea to minimise the action of ageism around us and the world.
Bibliography
Works Cited
Home, https://www.ageconcern.org.nz/. Accessed 4 August 2023.
Reid, Sheldon. “Ageism and Age Discrimination.” HelpGuide.org, 21 June 2023, https://www.helpguide.org/articles/aging-issues/ageism-and-age-discrimination.htm. Accessed 4 August 2023.
“Ten facts that show why ageism is so harmful.” Centre for Ageing Better, 7 February 2023, https://ageing-better.org.uk/blogs/ten-facts-show-why-ageism-so-harmful. Accessed 4 August 2023.
Urwin, Matthew. “Ageism In The Workplace: Statistics To Know.” Built In, 24 August 2022, https://builtin.com/diversity-inclusion/ageism-in-the-workplace. Accessed 4 August 2023.
Link to our presentation
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10Z8f6ipK4LCbyAIz32C5_i2tlY6llu8xyLAAB7sctnU/edit#slide=id.p