Code fails to stop age bias, says MPs report

The government's voluntary code on combating age discrimination is not working, according to a report from the education and employment select committee. Its findings reinforce the call for legislation to make such discrimination unlawful ahead of the June 2006 deadline imposed by a European Union directive.

The committee found that workers aged over 50 are more likely than those under 50 to be in part-time employment and have a lower average hourly wage.

It also notes that they tend to have fewer or no qualifications, compared to those in the lower age groups and are thus more likely to experience long periods of unemployment.

The report found evidence that younger workers are also discriminated against.

The committee has called on the government to advance "more powerfully" the business case for age diversity. And it has recommended the establishment of a Working Age Agency to reduce the multiple barriers to older people entering or re-entering employment.

Although the code of practice on age diversity has been in place since 1999, evidence from the Employers' Forum on Age found that only a quarter of employers were even aware of its existence and only 4% were fully aware of it.

The majority of employers had no plans to change their existing practices.

But the government says its own survey of the employers who had used age as a selection criteria showed more than half had abandoned it in the first six months of the code's introduction.