The challenges of ageism in Brazil

Abstract

The material and symbolic resource flows and obligations between generations leave an indelible imprint on family members. These intergenerational exchanges have increased in recent years with growing human longevity and they thus have become important to current academic and policy agendas. Concurrently, ageism and age discrimination have emerged as important subjects. The main goal of this article is to call attention to these issues and their relationship with the current policy debate on resource allocation by age groups. We argue that ageism and the practice of age discrimination in Brazil should be viewed as part of the multiple forms of discrimination experienced by individuals. While noticing someone's age is not inherently offensive, acting on age-based stereotypes clearly works against the individual and often goes unchallenged by mainstream society. A central assumption in this paper is that the way we frame ageism and intergenerational relations significantly affects public policies.