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Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

nytimes.com

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Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#21

Post by [deleted] »

beachstartup wrote: post #11
rdl wrote: post #3

I still maintain there's age-cohort bias (anti boomer, etc.), not strictly age bias. In 2000, I remember most people over 30 being clueless about the Internet (given that the population who were familiar with the Internet in the 80swas so small...that core group was of course super clueful, but was of measure zero vs. people who were learning about it in college every year.) Now, it's largely been the case that anyon…

we have 30- 40- and 50-somethings working for us that have 20 years of experience with the internet. the first dot com boom was that long ago (1996). the oldest started in their 30s, the youngest started in their teens. this doesn't even count archaic technologies no longer in use. we are in a new era, one in which someone's age doesn't really tell you anything about their tech relevance. we generally hire based on e…

[deleted]

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#22

Post by pc86 »

fecak wrote: post #16
kasey_junk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So just stay relevant? The point of age bias isn't bias against people without relevant skills, its an actual bias against person of certain ages. Our industry is ripe with stories of folks with extremely relevant skill sets not getting jobs after a certain age (50 seems to be common). There is some (unintentional I'm sure) age bias even in the response of "stay relevant" as if the implication is that older devs do…

I don't believe that most anecdotal claims of age bias are truly a bias against someone's age, but rather a bias against someone who had a long tenure at a single company perhaps with a single technology on a single product development effort. It looks like age bias because you may be 50, but you worked on the same thing for 25 years. I don't think the industry is nearly as ripe with unemployed and relevant 50+'ers a…

Always happy to see your username on threads discussing these matters!

I think you bring up an important point - your average 50 year old developer is much more likely to have spent the last 10 years at the same company, working with the same technology, maybe even with the same title, than the 35 year old developer.

Most of my experience has been .Net web application development in the northeast/mid-Atlantic. I think it'd be damn near impossible for me to get a job writing Ruby or Go for a startup at this point unless I made it a goal (it's definitely not) and spent considerable effort in my spare time working on projects. I'm only 29.

If you're a 52 year old developer who has spent 22 years writing RPG reports for AS/400s and you get laid off, you're either going to end up in doing the exact same job for another company, or you're going to be retiring.

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#23

Post by mixmastamyk »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #19

I am in my mid-60s and I don't feel like I have suffered any age bias either at large companies like Google or small startups I have helped. I sort of grew up with computers. My older brother and I got a mini version of a mechanical difference engine when I was a kid. When I was about 11 my Dad got me occasional use of a time sharing system, so that planted some desire in my brain for using computers. In high school…

I've noticed that whether you are/were interested in management is a factor. Younger managers can imagine hiring older managers, but rarely engineers.

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#25

Post by chroma »

Swizec wrote: post #10
kilroy123 wrote: post #2

Personally, I worry about this in our industry. I plan to save, invest, and diversify my income. That way I can get out of the sooner, rather than later. I don't want to end up being a 50+ year old who can no longer get a job.

> I don't want to end up being a 50+ year old who can no longer get a job So just stay relevant? I'm 28, been coding for 19 years. What was relevant to learn when I was in middle and high school is completely useless now. All those endless hours spent learning how to make games in Pascal, irrelevant technologies. All those endless hours spent learning PHP3/4 and cobbling together websites and crude frameworks, irrele…

> So just stay relevant? I'm 28, been coding for 19 years. What was relevant to learn when I was in middle and high school is completely useless now.

One thing that older people (50+) have impressed upon me is that learning gets harder as you age. It's not just that your body and mind become tired more easily. In general, if a 20-year-old and a 50-year-old spend the same amount of time studying something, the 20-year-old will do better on a quiz. At least, that's what older people tell me. I'm your age, so I haven't experienced this firsthand.

If at some point your rate of learning becomes slower than the rate at which relevant technologies change, it's not possible to stay relevant. Your deep understanding won't do you nearly as much good if you only know languages and frameworks from 15 years ago.

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#26

Post by terrywilcox »

Swizec wrote: post #10
kilroy123 wrote: post #2

Personally, I worry about this in our industry. I plan to save, invest, and diversify my income. That way I can get out of the sooner, rather than later. I don't want to end up being a 50+ year old who can no longer get a job.

> I don't want to end up being a 50+ year old who can no longer get a job So just stay relevant? I'm 28, been coding for 19 years. What was relevant to learn when I was in middle and high school is completely useless now. All those endless hours spent learning how to make games in Pascal, irrelevant technologies. All those endless hours spent learning PHP3/4 and cobbling together websites and crude frameworks, irrele…

> Technologies change, syntax evolves, semantics improve, but your deep understanding of how to ask just the right question of a business person that turns a mathematically unsolvable problem, into something you can build in three days. That is always going to stay relevant.

I used to think like you.

But I'm 51 now. I've discovered that I was wrong.

The younger the technical interviewer, the less interested they are in my experience. I'm guessing that the less experience they have, the less value they see in experience. I suspect I was the same way 25 years ago.

I now understand why good developers go on to be lousy managers. They get old and get pushed out of development. Mid-level management is all that's available to them.

Fortunately I still have a job in an older development group. I still have some value, for now.

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#27

Post by danharaj »

pc86 wrote: post #18
danharaj wrote: post #9

I think this is caused by how heavily age segregated our societies are, from education and child care to nursing homes and elder care.

You're right this would be solved if we had babies in nursing homes and waited until someone was 80 to teach them calculus!

Or maybe child care centers and nursing homes could be colocated near public areas like parks and libraries. The old and the young are good for each other. And maybe people should feel comfortable pursuing further education no matter how old they are.

Although that's not what i had in mind when i mentioned education. Grades: Grades are the segregation. We are conditioned from a young age to accept social structures that discourage socialization between people of different age groups. Studies have shown that children learn better when they are in groups comprising a range of ages instead of just a single age.

Most people have an aversion towards camaraderie and integration with people who are significantly younger or older for way too long. Children are only supposed to have a few adult authority figures in their life until college, and even then it's weird to be friends with someone older than a grad student.

When does age discrimination end? Pretty sure the article highlights evidence that it doesn't end.

Alternatives? Not hard to imagine. In other societies past and present (and hopefully future) people of all ages have ample opportunity to make strong social connections with people of other ages. Our social structures actively discourage cohesion between age cohorts.

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#28

Post by yummyfajitas »

tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #12
rdl wrote: post #3

I still maintain there's age-cohort bias (anti boomer, etc.), not strictly age bias. In 2000, I remember most people over 30 being clueless about the Internet (given that the population who were familiar with the Internet in the 80swas so small...that core group was of course super clueful, but was of measure zero vs. people who were learning about it in college every year.) Now, it's largely been the case that anyon…

> So while this might be a problem now, it's correcting itself with time. that assumes that the reasons behind age discrimination/bias are purely based on competence (or lack thereof). I don't see the problem correcting itself when it seems the drivers behind age discrimination are wages and perceived cultural fit (anecdotally more evident in cases where the manager is younger than the candidate)

I don't see the problem correcting itself when it seems the drivers behind age discrimination are wages

This is a situation where it's not age discrimination at all - it's merely a candidate pricing themselves out of the market. Similarly, toomuchtodo suggests that as his life moves forward he'll be less willing to put the work in than his younger peers. That reduces his value.

Perhaps a significant chunk of age discrimination is merely workers being unwilling to recognize/acknowledge their actual market worth.

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#29

Post by Retric »

kctess5 wrote: post #15
zeroxfe wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, although there will continue to be new technologies that separate one generation from the next.

While this may be true at some level, I'm not sure it will be as drastic a change as no-internet to internet. Young people today (and increasingly many not-so-young people) have been growing up with the concept of quickly changing "high technology" and expect incremental change. I myself feel like if the next biggest shiniest thing comes along, I will be ready to jump aboard, with the benefit of deeply knowing that w…

I don't think it's going to be any time soon, but brain augmentation / neural interfaces are likely in the long term. Whenever they show up it's probably going to be a much larger leap than the internet.

PS: Don't forget in many ways the steam engine was the last major leap and that was in the late 1700's.

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#30

Post by mark_l_watson »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #23
mark_l_watson wrote: post #19

I am in my mid-60s and I don't feel like I have suffered any age bias either at large companies like Google or small startups I have helped. I sort of grew up with computers. My older brother and I got a mini version of a mechanical difference engine when I was a kid. When I was about 11 my Dad got me occasional use of a time sharing system, so that planted some desire in my brain for using computers. In high school…

I've noticed that whether you are/were interested in management is a factor. Younger managers can imagine hiring older managers, but rarely engineers.

That is likely true. Except occasionally being a tech lead, I have never been in any management role in my career.
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