Introduction

In 2006, the United Kingdom finally passed legislation against age discrimination in employment. The essentials can be summarised quickly: both direct and indirect discrimination are outlawed; improved employment protection has been granted to older workers; and the opportunity to work past the age of 65 is now negotiable with employers. Over the coming years, numerous legal decisions will test the legislation's defences, and other political pressures will be brought to bear which may abolish mandatory retirement for all but a few occupations.

Ostensibly, the new Age Regulations are a direct response to the European Union Employment Directive on Equal Treatment of November 2000 (2000/78/ET), which obliges member states to redesign their existing legislation on race, sex and disability discrimination, while universalising legislative action against age discrimination. However, in the medium term, the British legislation represents the culmination of a revival of interest in the problems of older workers that has intensified since the early 1990s, in response to concerns over the fall in older men's economic activity rates since the 1970s (although these have risen since 1994), a future ageing population, skills shortages and human capital wastage, and those overall labour-supply considerations that are central to the New Deal. Action against age discrimination is part of the government strategy of attaining an 80% overall employment rate and getting one million people aged between 50 and state pension age back into work. The largely voluntarist approach of John Major's Conservative government (1990-97) was followed by New Labour's post-1997 initiatives – notionally more proactive, but still very cautious. From 2000, however, legislation became inevitable and the example of other countries has been arousing growing interest.

In designing legislation against age discrimination in employment, the obvious country to examine is the United States, which has had, at federal level, an Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) since 1967 (with subsequent amendments). The ADEA provides protection against age-based discrimination in hiring, firing, promotion, demotion, retraining, working hours, compensation, workplace harassment and other aspects of employment. Since 1986, mandatory retirement has been abolished for all but a few key occupations where public safety is an issue (notably, firefighters, bus drivers, civilian airline pilots, prison guards and uniformed police officers).