Age discrimination left unchecked: equality legislation falling short 20 years on

Anti-ageism campaigners at the Centre for Ageing Better, supported by leading legal experts, are highlighting how the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006, which came into force 20 years ago today on 1 October 2006, has fallen short of its intention to address age discrimination.

The result of the legislative failure means age discrimination is left largely unchecked, with the legislation actually promoting the message that ageism is permitted in certain instances and is more acceptable than other prejudices.

This failing in the legislation was highlighted by the Women and Equalities Committee’s The Rights of Older People report in February 2025, with the committee finding that the existing age discrimination law and the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) are ‘failing older people’ as their protections are inadequate and rarely enforced.

The Committee’s report identified a number of actions to tackle the issue including calling on the government to commission a review into the effectiveness of protections against age discrimination. They recommended this review consider the impacts of allowing objective justification of direct age discrimination as well revisiting the case for a strengthened “reasonable steps” duty on employers to prevent age discrimination.

The government’s response to the report was to dismiss the concerns, claiming that the Equality Act 2010 provided sufficient legal protections and rejecting calls for a comprehensive legal review.

The Centre for Ageing Better is now calling on the new government to reconsider this decision.

It was only in 2006 that the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations came into force in the UK, making age discrimination in employment unlawful. This was followed by the Equality Act 2010 which brought together all anti-discrimination law, and named age as one of nine protected characteristics.

And while the Equality Act 2010 says it is unlawful to discriminate because of age, the law treats age differently and says that, in some cases, direct age discrimination can be justified such as in compulsory retirement ages. The law only allows this caveat with other protected characteristics, such as race or gender, in extremely specific circumstances.

As a result, the legislation makes it harder to challenge age discriminatory practice when it happens.

The potentially vague legal test of “proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim” is interpreted very broadly, which can make it harder for claimants to win discrimination cases, and is often the reason given as legal advice not to pursue claims.

The new report details how Acas recorded just 2,951 age discrimination jurisdictions in 2024/25, accounting for fewer than one in twelve (7%) of cases received.

Previous estimations from leading experts suggest the number of age discrimination legal complaints could be as low as 0.08% of possible claims by older workers who experience age discrimination.

Declan O’Dempsey, Barrister at Cloisters and a leading expert practitioner in discrimination and equality law, said:

Age discrimination laws in the UK capture only the grossest forms of discrimination in an uncertain way due to the possibility of justifying direct age discrimination.”

Research carried out by the Centre for Ageing Better’s anti-ageism campaign Age Without Limits has previously revealed the prevalence in society of age discrimination and negative treatment because of age.

The annual number of age discrimination cases brought is hugely under representative of the scale of ageism – surveys from the campaign indicate that half of people over 50 experienced negative treatment because of their age over a 12-month period.

This includes more than one in three who experienced negative treatment in the workplace – the most common setting for where people report experiencing negative treatment related to their age.

Jemma Mouland, Deputy Director for Ageism and Inequality at the Centre for Ageing Better, said:

The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations, and subsequent Equality Act, were brought in with good intentions. But because of the complexity, and uniqueness of age as a protected characteristic, the law falls short on those intentions. This has real-world consequences of age discrimination being left largely unchecked and people not being adequately protected from age discrimination.

“Age is the only protected characteristic where direct discrimination can be lawfully justified. Objective justification can be used by organisations to justify a practice which, for all intents and purposes, is ageist – people being treated unfairly because of their age.

“Treating age differently in the law suggests that ageism is somehow a more acceptable, or justifiable form of discrimination. This has a real, and symbolic effect in devaluing age, ageism and its harmful effects.”

Built into the Equality Act are a raft of age-based exceptions in areas like employment, financial services, education and criminal law, which allows for the different treatment of people based on their age including:

• Allowance for differential treatment based on age within specific industries, such as the insurance and financial services industry. 
  The legislation allows for this as long as it is based on a clear assessment of ‘risk’ associated with someone’s age which means that the cost of insurance, and whether it can be accessed at all, can be affected purely by your age.

Harriet Bailiss, Co-head of Ageism at the Centre for Ageing Better, said: 

Giving a lawful justification for age discrimination and exemptions makes the protection for age more limited than for other characteristics. The law indicates that some age-based rules can be fair or practical, whereas discrimination on grounds like race is almost never acceptable.

“But this flexibility also means that employers and service providers can defend ageist practices, and it makes ageism far harder to challenge in practice. As a result, despite legal recognition, age discrimination continues largely unchecked. And that surely wasn’t the intentions of the legislation when it first came into force 20 years ago.” 

Find the full Left out by the Law report on Centre for Ageing Better's website.