◄Previous: 1.4 Impacts of ageism

# 2 Age discrimination and UK law

This section will look at how age discrimination is treated under UK law. You will be introduced to relevant aspects of the Equality Act 2010 and the regulations for public bodies known as the Public Sector Equality Duty.

You will also learn about the specific duties that apply in Wales and the role of an Older People’s Commissioner, an office unique to Wales and Northern Ireland.

For context, it is worth noting some demographic data such as the median age of the UK’s population and how it has increased since 1975.

### What is meant by 'median age'?

Imagine all the ages of all people in a country are arranged in numerical order, e.g. from 0 to 100. The age that falls in the exact middle of this sorted list is the median age. If the median age is getting higher, it means more people are living for longer.

Figure 7: Median age since 1955 in the UK (UN, 2024)

According to the Office for National Statistics, Scotland and Wales have the highest median ages in the UK. 898,383 people over 60 live in Wales, a number projected to rise to 993,000 by 2030 (ONS, 2024).

An ageing population has an impact on all levels of society with implications for policy decisions in health and social care, the economy, housing and infrastructure and more. The data makes it clear that older people cannot be excluded from society and need to be supported to live healthy, independent lives.

For a more detailed look at the overall picture for older people in Wales you can read Growing older in Wales: A snapshot of older people’s experiences by the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales. This link will also be available in the resources section at the end of the course.

◄Contents►Next: 2.1 The Equality Act 2010

OpenLearn - Ageism and age discrmination
Except for third party materials and otherwise, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence, full copyright detail can be found in the acknowledgements section. Please see full copyright statement for details.