told工作中的年龄歧视

2021年1月21日发(作者：领域英语)
工作中的年龄歧视

英语专四阅读模拟试题：工作中的年龄歧视

Recently, Congressional Democrats introduced legislation to make it easier for older
workers to win age discrimination lawsuits. Age discrimination remains a significant
workplace issue.
In recent ten years, 15.79 percent of cases brought to the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission, were described as successful claims. While this number is
small given the number of workers covered by the Age Discrimination in
Employment Act, many, if not most, instances of age discrimination are never sued,
and cases hiring discrimination often go undetected.
Most of those who do sue are white, male middle-managers who are likely to have
lost a sizeable salary and pension. For the most part, other groups do not sue because
the costs of a lawsuit outweigh the potential benefits. Age discrimination remains a
significant workplace issue.
There is strong experimental evidence for age discrimination in hiring, at least for
entry-level jobs. Recently, I performed a labor market experiment in Boston in which
I sent out thousands of resumes for fictitious (
虚构的
) entry-level female candidates
and measured response rate based on date of high school graduation. Among this
group, younger applicants, whose date of high school graduation indicated that they
were less than 50 years old, were 40 percent more likely to be called back for an
interview than were older applicants.
It is difficult to tell whether employment problems are worse for older workers than
for other workers when times are bad. The number of discrimination lawsuits
increases during times of high unemployment, but this finding by itself does not
indicate an increased level of age discrimination. In times of higher unemployment,
the opportunity cost to a lawsuit is lower than it is when times are good.
From the employer's perspective, mass layoffs may seem like a good chance to
remove a higher proportion of generally more expensive older workers without the
worry of being sued. On the other hand, employers may be less likely to remove
protected older workers because' they still fear lawsuits. One thing we do know is that
once an older worker loses a job, he or she is much less likely to find a new job than a
younger worker is.
Unfortunately, the effect of legislation prohibiting age discrimination is not easy to
see and may actually be part of the reason it is so difficult for older workers to find
employment. If it is more difficult to fire an older worker than a younger worker, a
firm will be less likely to want to hire older workers. Indeed, my research finds that in
states where workers have longer time to bring a lawsuit claim, older men work fewer
weeks per year, are less likely to be hired, and less likely to be fired than men in states
where they do not have as much.
Not many people would suggest that we go back to a world prior to the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act, in which advertisements specify the specific ages
of people they are willing to hire. However, legislation prohibiting discrimination is
no panacea (
万灵药
). The recent proposed congressional legislation could have both
positive and negative effects on potential older workers.