Ironing out wrinkles with Botox and plastic surgery is a drastic measure hundreds of workers have admitted they would take to fight workplace ageism, a new survey has revealed.
Workers over the age of 45 are considering aesthetic procedures and surgeries to look younger in order to get a job or promotion.
The Centre for Ageing Better surveyed 567 people over the age of 45 and said the results were “dispiriting”.
The charity found 15 per cent said they would consider getting plastic surgery to look younger if it helped them to get a job or a promotion.
One in five (20 per cent) people in this age group said they would consider Botox or fillers while around two in five (41 per cent) said they would consider dyeing their hair if it helped them to get on at work.
Carole Easton, chief executive at the Centre for Ageing Better, said it is “dispiriting to see the drastic steps that older workers are forced to consider in order to get a level playing field in the workplace”.
“We’ve heard from jobseekers who are inexplicably passed over for hundreds of job applications despite extensive skills and experience and who say they can feel prospective employers go cold on them the moment they realise their age,” she added.
Inappropriate comments about age from colleagues and managers were found to be common, with 16 per cent of those polled saying they had been a victim at work. Of these, two in five (39 per cent) said this happened frequently.
However, plastic surgeon Charles Durrant at Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth warns that although these procedures and surgeries can boost self-confidence, they come with risks and will not help combat ageism itself.
“Personally I don’t think it is a good reason to have any kind of surgical or non-surgical procedure. All of these things carry a degree of risk and the onus shouldn’t be on the individual to conform to the expectations of those around them,” he told the Independent.
“It should be a personal choice for their own self-esteem and confidence to allow them to feel more comfortable in their own skin and it doesn’t deal with the actual problem, which is ageism itself,” he added.
Ms Easton added: “Many people assume that in this day and age we have the legislation and the HR policies that put an end to ageism in the workplace. But the data, and the experiences we hear from people, tell a different story.
“The persistent and unfounded stereotypes around older workers are consigning too many people to the employment scrapheap with a third of their working lives still to go.”
