IN A CHANGE OF PACE from the distress of declining social order at home and abroad, a group of women, meeting in last Wednesday's Gleaner Editors' Forum, raised the issue of employment for women in the 40-60 age group. What emerged was the view that discrimination was being practised by employers who bypassed them for younger workers.
As the saying goes, there are two sides to every story. There is no doubt that older women (and men) are not the first choice for employers of labour in the private and public sector. While there is no official age for retirement (according to International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions), it has become accepted practice in our society for workers to go into retirement between age 55 and 65, at which time they are regarded as having completed their employment cycle, thus making way for a new generation.
In better economic times, there was the chance of some mature workers finding re-employment, making use of their experience. However, in an era when even younger workers are being made redundant as both public and private sectors engage in "downsizing," re-employment opportunities for the older group are rapidly diminishing.
Meanwhile, a burgeoning youth population is demanding admission to the workplace and exerting social pressures with implications for the whole community. Indeed, youth must be prepared for the long haul ahead, hence it is understandable that more attention is being given to equipping them for survival, without which the manifestations of their frustration would be even worse. If all things were equal, the ideal would be to give access to employment to workers of all ages, but the harsh fact is that this is not possible, not here, not anywhere. It is a dilemma which is challenging not only our country but others across the globe. We must find our own ways of solving it.
It is in that context that we would offer for consideration the idea that the special needs of mature workers male and female should not be seen as discrimination in the sense of wilful prejudice, but a manifestation of the present economic circumstances which sets the agenda and challenges the whole society to develop new modalities of survival.
Thanks to advances in health care and improved social amenities, we now have an ageing but vibrant population which demands the right to a full life, but the question is, how is this to be provided? Added to the problem is the fact that not all of today's mature persons made financial provision for their sunset years. Even where pensions exist, they do not always keep pace with the galloping rate of inflation, hence the cry for earnings to fulfill needs.
The answer to the dilemma could be found in the willingness of mature workers to re-tool and re-equip themselves as much as possible. New strategies must be applied, such as a sense of entrepreneurship through self-employment, increased co-operation with family members to create enterprises of whatever size, flexibility to accept part-time rather than full-time work when available and creative use of skills which come from experience. It is in this regard that tribute must be paid to those individuals and agencies concerned with promoting new concepts of "growing old constructively and gracefully."
With respect, therefore, to the "sisters" who ventilated their feelings in the Editors' Forum, we would remind them that youth might have the energy, but to the mature belongs the gift of experience, a talisman for the journey through the maze of change, where nothing is the way it used to be but where challenge can mean both problem and opportunity.
It is in this spirit that we wish for all our women, of whatever "age cohort," as the demographic experts would say, a fulfilling and productive International Women's Day when it comes.
