Biased media? How news content influences age discrimination claims

Abstract

Information distributed via the news media is acknowledged as a potential source of negative beliefs about, and biased behaviors toward, older workers. Focusing on the Netherlands, the current study explains age discrimination claims filed by older workers by investigating the impact of visibility and media stereotypes of older workers in the news media, while controlling for real-world events and older workers’ expectations of unemployment (2004–2014). The results, based on time-series analysis, reveal that the visibility of older workers in the news media is associated with higher levels of age discrimination claims. This effect can be partly explained with the visibility of the negative media stereotype that older workers experience health problems in the content of news coverage. Furthermore, unemployment expectations decreased the number of age discrimination claims. These results offer support for the notion that the news environment is a source of variation in the experience of age discrimination at the workplace.