The expression of the age discrimination in the Lithuanian labour market

In ageing societies, the elderly persons constitute larger and larger part of the population. The active participation of the elderly people in the labour market is a very important factor to sustainable development of the societies. However, in many EU countries labour market participation opportunities decline with the age. Lithuania is not an exception in this context. The results of national and international surveys disclosed that 50-55 years old persons face the first difficulties on the labour market. 50-55 years old persons not only face particular social exclusion in job search, but more often than younger people experience discrimination on the workplace (Eurobarometer, 2012a; Larja et al., 2012). This paper is aimed at analysing an expression of discrimination of elderly people on the Lithuanian labour market. In this paper theoretical aspects of age discrimination, elderly people employment as a social policy problem are discussed. The empirical part of the paper presents the results of age discrimination on the labour market survey research carried out in Lithuania in 2014. 974 persons aged 40-74 participated in the survey. The research results revealed that every fourth respondent is facing discrimination in professional activity and the expression of discrimination tends to increase with the age of the respondent. Discrimination in the age group of 40-50 years is lower than the total sample average and starts to increase in the age group of 56-60 years, and especially increases in the older age groups. The research results disclosed that for elderly employees there are obstacles for career and future perspectives; elderly people more often face discriminative, lacking social justice and personal respect labour relations, more often experiencing pressure to leave the job or facing unreasonable dismissal.