What is age discrimination?
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The Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful to discriminate against employees, job seekers and trainees because of age. For example, this may include because they are “younger” or “older” than a relevant and comparable employee.
Key points
There are four main types of age discrimination.
Direct discrimination
Breaks down into three different sorts of direct discrimination of treating someone ‘less favourably’ because of:
- their actual age (direct discrimination)
- their perceived age (direct discrimination by perception)
- the age of someone with whom they associate (direct discrimination by association).
Direct discrimination because of someone’s actual age is the only one of the three different sorts of direct discrimination that may be objectively justified as what the law terms “a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”. This means it must be proportionate, appropriate and necessary (economic factors such as business needs and efficiency may be legitimate aims).
Indirect dis...
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