Problem statement
Discuss about the Australian Students Attitudes To Ageism.
The Average age of the Australian population is rising at a rapid rate, which is increasing the percentage of aged individual. During the period of 1994 to 2014, the percentage of population in the history of 18 to 64 years remains stable at around 66%. However, the percentage of people over the age of 65 has increased from 11.8% to 14%. The number of people over 85 years old has also double during this time period (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018). This is one of the significant changes in the Australian demographic environment, which is causing major changes in the working population and the quality of health care services that are provided to the society.
According to Hubbard et al. (2015), the improved level of Healthcare service that are available for the modern generation, has easily helped to deal with all form of physical complications that arises with aging. This is also causing a significant change in the workplace environment, where the percentage of is it workforce in Australia has increased from 6% to 13% in the last 15 years. As far as the health report is concerned, nearly half of the aged population in Australia has been reported to have some kind of physical disabilities. Nearly above three quarter of the population seems to have good health (Population.net.au, 2018). It is also estimated that of the Year 2056, nearly 8.7 million people within the Australian population will be aging about 65 years. This will be approximately 22% of the total population (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018).
With increased number of people in the aged category, the workplace population in Australia has undergone significant change. This is going to a high level of impact on the young age population.
The current research work in the given context will analyze the attitude of the Young Australian student towards aged individual. There has been increase number of cases of aged people facing discrimination at workplace due to their physical and mental disability. The younger population especially the student plays a significant role in ensuring proper coordination being maintained within the society within population of different age groups. The current research work will therefore attempt to deal with the social issues of discrimination against the old people. Proper recommendations will also be provided at the concluding point of the research.
Purpose of the Research
- To find out the attitude of the young Australian students over the issue of ageism
- To find out the cause of social discrimination faced by the elderly in the Australian society
- To provide recommendations to deal with the issue of ageism in the society of Australia
Hypotheses 1:
The workplace culture in Australia are getting affected due to the increased number of people in aged category
Hypotheses 2:
The improved Healthcare Technology responsible for increase in average age of people in Australian population
Hypotheses 3:
Increased in the total number of aged population is compromising up on the quality of Healthcare service
Hypotheses 4:
The young generation and Australian students generally shows negative behavior towards the aged people.
Hypotheses 5:
The young generation and Australian students are attempting to minimize the discrimination that are faced by the aged population in Australia
Challenges faced by the Aged population in Australia
The modern society in the Australia are suffering from the issue of ageism that is described as a phenomenon where stereotypic mentality are used in order to discriminate the aged people. The physical and mental disabilities of the aged individuals are the main cause of social discrimination. This form of social discrimination is widely evident in Health Care Centre of Australia where age related disease such as memory loss; physical disabilities are not given proper priority from the Healthcare workers. The aged individuals also face discrimination within the workplace due to the Limited potential. The Employer does not take proper necessary steps to provide proper trainings to any of the older workers mostly due to their Limited capability. According to Radermacher and Feldman (2017), due to their Limited working capability the aged workers are not able to deal with any forms of organizational Change management. The aged people also face challenge while accessing proper housing solutions that are safe and affordable according to their situation.
The Human Rights Commission of Australia has identified ageism as one of the major social issues that is compromising upon the overall work ability of the Australian population. Nevertheless, in most of the cases the aged individuals face the discrimination of social exclusion, where they are isolated from all forms of communal activities. Due to their slow understanding of all form of life activities, they often isolate him in order to deal with the mental challenges. Lu (2012), has mentioned in the given context that isolation is one of the biggest causes of depression in other mental diseases that occur in an individual with increase of age. Additionally, due to higher levels of social exclusion it is not possible for the aged individual to seek proper Healthcare support.
Phipps (2006), has mentioned about elder abuse, which is also one of the major social issues that are faced due to physical and mental torture towards the aged people. Elder abuse in other words can be defined as singer or repeated act of lack of appreciation that are shown towards the aged. The major forms of elder abuse pregnant in the Australian society include psychological, emotional and financial abuse. The aged social care service that is provided by the government has also not been effective in the recent years. This is mostly due to the increased cost of social and health care service that is being provided by the Australian government which has been complicated in the recent times (Haveman?Nieset al. 2003).
Research Objectives
As mentioned in the previous sections using a population is one of the major issues in face within the Australian society. One of the root causes of the aging issue is due to the stigmatized attitude of the people. From the study of Lorettoet al. (2000), It is quite evident that positive attitude of the younger generation towards the aged individual can have a positive impact in dealing with the social stigmatization issues. The theory of reasoned action can be implemented in order to ensure that proper communication is being maintained towards teaching division by younger generation. There are added demographic factors that include cultural issues thatseem to be a major barrier for communication younger generation with the aged ones. For example in a fast moving society like Australia, the nation is mostly dependent on the sweet and accurate working capability of the younger generation to deal with all type of complex situations. In such a society the aged individuals get minimum amount of opportunity to deal and communicate with the younger generations and other people of the society.
Minichiello et al.(2000), have additionally mentioned that with higher level of interaction between the aged and younger generation, it is possible for the community to gain proper work experience from the values provided by the elderly. This is considered to be one of the major contributions provided by the aged individuals, which can be a major compensation for their limited physical and mental ability. Hence, it will be possible to make us on the human resources that are available within the society. Another major advantage in the given context is due to the diversity in the age group that can be maintained within the workforce of a nation. Thereality of rapid ageing society within a growing economy makes the needs of the people to work effectively with people of all age categories.
According to Hertzman and Zhong (2016), most of the people with the younger generation considered ageism as one of the major social issues that is compromising upon the employability skills at National level. It is also important to note that aged women are victim of more discrimination within the society, which is mainly caused due to their gap of understanding levels. Australian government has implemented the Age Discrimination Act 2004, which provides important legislative guideline to ensure proper fundamental rights for aged people (Davey 2018). Nevertheless, it is also an essential fact note that at international level there are no such legal guidelines that will help to protect the need of old people. The United Nations have also implemented the principles for supporting the needs of older people, which have been for the supported by the Australian government. These principles mainly focus upon encouraging independence for the elderly people by involving their participation in all forms of social development activities. With better level of encouragement it is also possible to achieve self-sufficiency that can help to restore dignity of the aged people within the society. In the given context, Fisher et al. (2017) have mentioned that Young students who are more aware about the legislative system have been seen to show less discriminating attitude towards the aged. Hence, it is essential to spread essential information related to the legal rights that protect the interest of aged within the society.
Research Hypotheses
The findings of Shippeeet al.(2017), clearly suggest that most of the students, who are working within an organization as an internal or new joined, clearly have low level of understanding with the experienced or senior employees. This increases the chance of conflict within an organization between the younger and the senior workers. What are the major negative aspects of all the older managers and supervisors within an organization is there lack of ability to understand the thought process of younger generation and implement change process for their career path development within the organization. It is therefore evident that failing to understand the proper requirement for each group, the older employees have not been able to gain the trust and dignity of the young employees.
For rapidly developing industrial sector like IT and electronic Technology, most of the employers demand fast Changing adaptability of the workers which will help them to understand all adverse situations. The discrimination that is encountered by the aged workers within these industries is evident from the recruitment strategies. Within the eligibility criteria, most of the organizations set a Very low upper age limit, which disqualifies all the aged workers in spite of the fact that they have higher experience (Neysmith 2018). It is however also important to note that from the employer’s perspective, recruitment of experienced aged workers may cost more compact too young candidate as the former demand higher level of salary. One of the effective ways that can be implemented to deal with the given issues is to improve upon the skills development program that aims to provide advanced training to the experienced aged workers. This can help in the process of implementing effective Change management, which is needed for better sustainability of a nation and Society.
The link between the health and working capability of an individual is considered to be highly essential, which is responsible for poor work life balance that are being maintained by the senior employees. Individuals with poor health record are less likely to get employed within an organization as it can have a direct impact upon the overall productivity. Yeah also cases of people retiring at earlier age due to health related issues, which they felt can be a major cause of embarrassment within the workplace. Due to this early retirement process, the organization sometimes can face loss in human resources. Retention of the old employee can therefore be a challenge, mostly because of the age related health issues. According to Duncan (20178), it is important to focus upon the mental health of the aged employees, which can help them to better cope up with all type of challenging situations and new changes that arises within an organization. It is also the duty of the management ensures that proper communication and interaction occurs between the aged senior and new joined employees.
Literature Review
The current literature has been able to clearly highlight the age related issues, which are mainly encounter due to social discrimination within the workplace and the society of Australia. It has also recommended strategies to ensure that aged individuals get proper treatment with dignity from younger generation. This mainly includes proper communication and interaction between the aged and the younger people within the society. Nevertheless, the major gap in the existing literature is that it has not highlighted upon the practical strategies that can be implemented within the society for improve level of communication between aged and younger generation.
This portion of the research proposal will focus upon the Research Design and strategies that will be implemented by the investigators in order to collect important data relevant to the investigation subject area. These information or data will be analyzed in a predetermined process, which will ultimately help to draw conclusion upon subject area. The hypothesis that is considered during the initial stage of the research for will be given prime focus while selecting on the research strategies.
The purpose of choosing accurate Research Design is to ensure all the components related to the investigation are arranged in proper manner in order to accurately address the research problem. It also constitutes the blueprint that will be applied by the investigators to collect relevant data and measure the same. According to Lewis (2015), There are mainly 3 types of Research Design that are implicated in each of the cases related to the investigation. The descriptive Research Design is applicable in all investigation work, which has a definite set of objectives and hypothesis that need to be analyzed by proper relevant data collection. In this type of Research Design both positive and negative aspect of the research work are considered before drawing final conclusion.
The exploratory method of Research Design is implemented to understand the psychological aspect of the research subject upon the area of Investigation. That is also the explanatory Research Design, where the collected data is analyzed without considering the negative and positive outcome of the same. Both in the cases of explanatory and exploratory Research Design, investigators do not follow a certain objective pattern.
In the given case, therefore, the investigators will choose the descriptive Research Design which will allowed to considered both negative and positive aspect of the discrimination faced by elderly people in Australia society from the behavior of student. The exploratory Research Design can also be implicated in order to understand the psychological aspect of the younger generation that they have up on working with the older people.
Attitude towards ageing
The research instruments are chosen by the investigators depending upon the type of data that are collected and the volume of the same, which need to be stored for future reference. The major research instrument that will be used in the current research for data collection is Survey test, questionnaire, which will be implemented upon the chosen range of younger population within the Australian society. Proper questionnaires will be design in order to accurately implement the research instrument for data collection.
The relevant instruments that will be implemented in survey are the rating scales, where the survey respondents will be able to provide ratings to their understanding and impact of the research topic on their life.
The current research work will use the primary form of data collection, which will be done by conducting survey. For this purpose, the investigators will interact with the younger generation in the Australian society that will help them to understand their viewpoints on the ageism issue of the society. They will also conduct the interviews of elderly people, who have suffered from age related discrimination at the workplace and various levels within the society.
There are two types of sampling process that are being implemented in the work of investigation. For the given investigation work, it is advisable to use the non-probable sampling methods, where the size and the source of the sample are pre-determined. The investigators will use this method to select the survey participants based upon their interaction with the aged people. Data will be collected from the 40 students of 5 different classes from Collin University in the form of survey.
Statistical Analysis Techniques Used
For the given research work, quantitative tools of data analysis will be used to evaluate the data that are collected from the surveys. The data will be represented in the statistical graphs that will help in the purpose of proper interpretation of the same. The interview data will analyze using the qualitative methods by interpreting the themes about the relevant topic.
Value of the Study
The researchers also need to ensure that proper ethical research principles, which will ensure that genuine and relevant data are being used for the analysis purpose. There also will not be any forms of legal violation be implicated while the data are being collected. The value of the study will therefore be high and the same can be used for all forms of future reference.
As the primary data are collected from the survey, SPSS software method will be implicated to analyze the same. The questionnaires will be coded using the SPSS tool in order to interpret the findings.
The limitations of the research may be caused due to shortage of time and funding. The investigators may also not get the access and opportunity to conduct the survey of all the students determined in the sample.