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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Making older people equal
— reforming the law on access to education and other services | | Author(s) | Brice Dickson, Lisa Glennon |
| Journal title | International Journal of Education and Ageing, vol 1, no 1, June 2010 |
| Publisher | Association for Education & Ageing - AEA, Leicester, June 2010 |
| Pages | pp 67-76 |
| Source | Institute of Lifelong Learning, Leicester University, Regent Road, Leicester, LE1 7AA. |
| Keywords | Adult Education ; Consumer ; Ageism ; Rights [elderly] ; Law ; Social policy. |
| Annotation | Age-based discrimination in the supply of goods and services (including educational services) has only recently been outlawed in the UK by the equality Act 2010, the relevant sections of which have not yet been brought into force. This paper critically considers the Act and its implications, as well as the current proposal for an EU Directive on Goods and Services. It argues that the exceptions permitting service providers to discriminate against older people (i.e. negative exceptions) should be very specifically set out in the reforming legislation. There should be no general defence to a claim of age discrimination based around the concept of "reasonableness", which would not be consistently interpreted by courts and tribunals in a way that steers clear of traditional ageist assumptions and stereotyping. The paper argues that service providers should be permitted to discriminate in favour of older people (i.e. make positive exceptions if the reasons for doing so satisfies legislative criteria which are designed , amongst other things, to meet the particular needs of older people or promote social incusion.Under this proposal, preferential treatment such as age-related concessionary fees for adult education courses and programmes would be lawful. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-101129007 A |
| Classmark | GP: WY: B:TOB: IKR: VR: TM2 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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