ABSTRACT
The Equality Act of 2010 in England and Wales has nine strands of equality, and one of them is age. Although it is illegal to discriminate against people purely based on their age, it is difficult to enforce this on a day-to-day basis, especially in multi-factored situations where people cannot quite put their finger on what is going on. People's own attitude will be a mix of their general, intrinsic beliefs, assumptions and experiences about getting old plus the conditioned beliefs and judgements that they absorb from the world around them. They do not have to accept the attitudes of others and make them their own. The bad news is that many people can feel unsettled and rather rattled at the prospect of unpicking beliefs they have lived by for a very long time. This can be especially difficult if they are surrounded by significant people in their life who feel rather threatened by them changing.
