17/10/2017
Blog by Roisin Mallon, Senior Policy Manager, Equality Commission NI
For many people age is just a number – though it is also an annual reminder of how far we have come in the last year and of how quickly our lives pass. In equality law there is another dimension to it - age is one of the grounds on which people are protected against discrimination in employment.
In the rest of the UK the law also covers age discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services, as well as in the workplace. Not in Northern Ireland, however, where age discrimination law applies only to employment. That means we do not have legal protection from age discrimination in a wide range of areas such as health and social care, accessing financial services or transport provision.