Youngism: Discrimination and Stereotypes
Vojtěch Bartoš,
Michal Bauer (),
Jana Cahlíková () and
Julie Chytilová ()
Additional contact information
Michal Bauer: Charles University, Prague
Jana Cahlíková: Erasmus University Rotterdam
Julie Chytilová: Charles University, Prague
No 17384, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
Abstract:
Preferences and beliefs about different age groups shape social, political, and economic outcomes. This paper provides strong evidence of "youngism", which refers to systematic bias in social preferences and unfavorable stereotypes against young adults. Among nationally representative samples from the United States and Czechia, we show that participants in both countries are substantially less pro-social in controlled allocation tasks towards young adults relative to other age groups. This preference bias is widespread, similar in size to discrimination against immigrants, and increases with age. Next, we show that young adults are perceived as more immoral, less helpful, less responsible, less hard-working, and enjoying easier lives than other age groups. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that these unfavorable stereotypes about young adults feed into the preference bias.
Keywords: inter-generational conflict; social preferences; discrimination; stereotypes; youngism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D64 D91 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 84 pages
Date: 2024-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp17384.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
Working Paper: Youngism: Discrimination and Stereotypes (2024) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17384
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().