[neilv]

The article's way of using "ageism" in the lede, and their title, both seem odd, and seem to confuse the real issue of what I think what most people mean by "ageism".

There seems to be a substantial tech industry aversion to hiring developers in 40s (sometimes 30s) or older.

But if you suggest that developers in their 40s expect salary to keep growing without limit, that fuels hairtrigger resentment arguments about how those people are just greedy and unrealistic, and that that's the cause of any "ageism" they perceive.

That would be a diversion from legitimate issues of people getting their resumes illegally screened for age, interview tests targeted at people with CS101 fresh in mind, rejecting candidates for "culture fit" (not just over-20s, but women, certain ethnicities/racial backgrounds, unapproved sex/gender identification), etc.

[ChuckNorris89]

>"resumes illegally screened for age"

I'm happy this is a thing in the US and wish Europe would copy this since in some Western European countries like Austria, having your birthday and photograph on your resume is mandatory making discrimination a piece of cake.

[bongobongo]

The idea of having to include a headshot with a job application is insane to me. Unless you are in a public-facing role, your appearances are virtually irrelevant, and the information can only be used to discriminate against you for nefarious reasons.

This seems especially bad in places like France where the government explicitly does not collect demographic information on things like race and ethnicity. It allows employers to screen people based on race, but the government cannot prove it.

[neilv]

Photos are another one in the US, with our wealth of diversity, yet ongoing history of biases and marginalizing.

I used to hear in the US that some companies' HR had policies of discarding all resumes with photos or certain other details, to reduce risk of the company appearing to discriminate on basis of ethnicity or family status, for example. Perhaps apocryphal, but I always heard not to include a photo.

And we heard of studies in which resumes with nothing changed but the name, to a "black" one or a female one, were treated differently.

But then the most popular US resume Web sites introduced photos, to appear alongside your resume and your messages.

[burfog]

Note that a name can only indicate culture, not physical traits. This is a very different sort of discrimination.

[bongobongo]

People expect their salary to go up for a number of reasons, but the major factors are inflation and cost-of-living. If your salary is not going up by at least a certain percent a year, you are likely stagnating or losing income.

Another reason people expect their salary to go up is because it is a basic expectation that has existed for decades, and one upon which the supposed fairness of the current market is predicated. The idea is that you start young, earn little, work your way up, and earn more. Life is _much_ more expensive the older you get.

[notacoward]

> If your salary is not going up by at least a certain percent a year, you are likely stagnating or losing income.

That explains why income for the same person at differing times is correlated with age. It does not explain why income at the same time for different people is also correlated with age.

> Life is _much_ more expensive the older you get.

It's much more complicated than that. Cost of living goes down when you've paid off your student loans, down when you've paid off your mortgage. It goes up when you have children, up more when they enter college, sharply down again when they leave. About the only cost that consistently increases is health care, but insurance and other factors make that complicated too.

Also, we don't live in a world where people are paid according to their need, or where many people believe they should be. We live in a world where people are paid according to supply and demand (distorted somewhat by lingering neo-feudalism but close enough). People have to justify their salary based on what they produce, not what they require. Nobody expects their salary to go up based on the latter.

[bongobongo]

You're papering over all of the policy arguments that have been made over the past 30-50 years to convince people to give up pensions, unions, contracts, severance, etc., most of which boiled down to "not only will this new system be better for you, but it will be more efficient and cost less." Ignoring the consensus that is required in order for their to be any stability will lead you to conclusions like the ones you've just made.

With monopsony and other anti-competitive distortions being the name of the game in the labor market, using the "labor market" as a good indication of anything is also pretty useless. There is no labor market, for the most part, at least not in the sense that anybody means by "market."

By the way, the median first-time homebuyer in 2019 is 32 years old. With 30-year terms being the most popular, that means that they can expect to pay back their mortgage at about the same time they are paying a great deal more for medical insurance, life insurance, prescription drugs, medical treatments, etc. And if you think you stop paying for children when yours grow up, allow me to introduce you to the concept of "grandchildren."

[notacoward]

> You're papering over all of the policy arguments

Calling them "policy arguments" is way too charitable, and I'm not papering over anything. The excuses are irrelevant. The fact is that student loans exist. Mortgages often get paid off way before 30 years (less than 10 in my case). Not everyone even gets a mortgage. Children grow up. Some don't even rely on their parents to support grandchildren, and we'll be coming back to that. Some people remain healthy later into life. Cost of living does not uniformly get "much more expensive" as people age. Your claim, so you prove it.

> monopsony and other anti-competitive distortions

Those are very serious problems and I even alluded to them before, but to claim they're so bad that the laws of supply and demand have become inoperative is inane. Not even worth engaging on.

> With 30-year terms being the most popular

When you talk about 30-year terms, you're papering over (a) people who rent instead of buying, (b), the 20% of home purchases without any mortgage, (c) mortgages for shorter terms, and (d) people who pay off early. Cherry-pick much? Then you ignore mortgage-interest deductions, make a ton of assumptions about older people's health, and treat insurance and medical costs as strictly additive without substitution effects. To top it all off, you assume substantial support for grandchildren. That's actually damn rare. Most of us manage to raise our kids to be self-sufficient and support their own kids. I'm sorry if you didn't, but that doesn't change the statistical reality.

The fact remains that salary based on need is not a thing for purposes of this discussion. There's no rational expectation that employers will, out of the goodness of their hearts, pay older workers more because they need it. The same employer who you claim have completely rigged the game and advanced bogus arguments to cheat workers out of pensions? Your argument isn't even consistent, let alone credible.

[bongobongo]

It's honestly hard to cut through the randomness of your data points and the bitchiness of your tone and judgments in order to discover an underlying argument.

[notacoward]

I think it's a bit hypocritical for you to accuse others of randomness or lack of clarity under the circumstances, doubly so for you to sling "bitchy" at others as you go into a sulk instead of trying to support your claims. Might I suggest a course or two in logic or persuasive writing? It might do you a world of good.

[sharkmerry]

just curious if you have any data to support this?

> the 20% of home purchases without any mortgage,

I found a report that 30-34% own their homes completely but thats not new purchases. Its mostly people who've owned more than 20 years

[notacoward]

I haven't been able to find what I consider a truly authoritative source, but I've seen these figures many places (perhaps as a side effect of having gone through the process of buying a second house). Here's one example.

https://www.supermoney.com/studies/mortgage-industry-study/

The closest I can find to a real source is the National Association of Realtors, which claims 88% of purchases are financed.

https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics/research-rep...

The 30-34% number is probably more important, though, because paying off early also results in an immediate cost-of-living decrease - and a significant one, I can add from personal experience. ;)