Ageism: Discrimination And Social Conflict Among Canadian Seniors Essay.

Old member of the Canadian society are currently battling to have a secure position within the society and the reason for the same is that they are exposed to a number of social issues at large. There a number of initiatives that have been taken time and again in order to help the aging population but they are not enough to mitigate the issue at hand. While there are a number of social issues related to aging, one of the most common issues is ageism (Dolberg, Sigurðardóttir & Trummer, 2018). This has often led to discrimination thus leading to an impact on a number of social institutions like health care and economy.

Ageism is a major cause of discrimination in the society which is said to be worse than racism. With the Canadian population moving towards old age, they are often denied jobs which directly relates to the economic growth of the company. The GDP of the country goes down when a number of people are left without jobs simply because of discrimination that exists within the society. The participation rates of the older population is certainly low as per the OECD report and this is mainly due to categorization and discrimination (Marier & Revelli, 2017).

Social conflict theory believes that there exists a serious conflict among the different agencies within the society to attain a powerful position within the society (Dahrendorf, 2017). This is what takes place in the current society where there is a constant struggle between the young and the old to attain powerful positions within the society. This is where ageism comes into play as the old people are often neglected the opportunity to grow above their current position.

Ageism is a serious issue and it has been seen that an approximate of 80% of the older population in Canada agree to the fact that they are discriminated against or looked down upon as compared to the younger people (Ageism, Elder Abuse and Social Isolation, 2022). Ageism is directly related to the social institution of the health and social care sector and economic sector. It has been seen that a majority of the older population are unable to get proper healthcare facilities due to the aspect of discrimination. Lack of proper healthcare facilities lead to a series of physical and mental health issues in the aging population.

References

Ageism, Elder Abuse and Social Isolation. Nationalseniorsstrategy.ca. (2022). Retrieved 3 April 2022, from https://nationalseniorsstrategy.ca/the-four-pillars/pillar-1/addressing-ageism-elder-abuse-and-social-isolation/#:~:text=Age%2DRelated%20Social%20Issues%20Such,the%20health%20of%20older%20adults.

Dahrendorf, R. (2017). The modern social conflict. Routledge.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190430043649id_/https://www.karolinum.cz/ink2_stat/dload.jsp?prezMat=109419

Dolberg, P., Sigurðardóttir, S. H., & Trummer, U. (2018). Ageism and older immigrants. In Contemporary perspectives on ageism (pp. 177-191). Springer, Cham. file:///C:/Users/KOLHP0001/Downloads/1002169%20(1).pdf

Marier, P., & Revelli, M. (2017). Compassionate Canadians and conflictual Americans? Portrayals of ageism in liberal and conservative media. Ageing & Society, 37(8), 1632-1653. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X16000544