A feeling of alienation, often closely aligned to estrangement, is in essence, the feeling that you have no connection to the people, or group, surrounding you.
Not to be confused with Karl Marx’s original theories around labour alienation in a capitalist society, a more modern view of workplace alienation is one of being disconnected or isolated from co-workers, managers, and other team member, which can manifest in a number of ways, including feelings of not being valued or appreciated, being excluded from decisions or information, and/or a feeling that your work is not recognised or valued.
In Denied to Many’s Voice of Experience survey amongst 1,150 Australians aged 50+, 21.9% of respondents admitted that they had felt alienated at work. This was higher than feelings of alienation from their family at 19.1% and much higher than their friends at 15.5%.
Of those Feelings of alienation from their workplace increased dramatically amongst those aged 50 – 59, with feelings of alienation more than doubling amongst these age groups. Of those feeling alienated at work, 42.8% were aged 50 – 54 years of age and 45.2% 55 – 59 years of age.
In addition, the relationship between workplace age discrimination and feelings of alienation is compelling:
21.3% of Voice of Experience respondents have felt discriminated against in their workplace based solely on their age. Amongst this group, feelings of alienation increased by 126% to almost half of respondents.
Age discrimination clearly correlates to increased feelings of alienation, which in turn can lead to:
- Reduced job satisfaction and involvement.
- Reduce tenure and/or increased levels of absenteeism.
- Declining performance.
- Impacts to an individual’s health, including stress and burnout.
Age discrimination in the workplace can be hard to identify. However, of the 21.3% of survey respondents that felt they had been discriminated against at work, more than half pointed to soft discrimination factors, such as comments from colleagues or managers, as the source of their discrimination – pointing to education as one of the first steps in combating age discrimination at work.
After all, in the words of Rebecca Makkai in her book The Great Believers, ‘The ugly truth about ageism: it’s a prejudice against our future selves. Ageism is the only self-correcting prejudice.’