lifestyle

"There is life after 50, okay?"

Do we really dismiss people once they reach a certain age?

A new campaign is trying to uncover whether our perceptions of older people are distorted.

According to the company as many as two out of three people over 50 have faced age discrimination in Australia, the question is, why?

In a clever social experiment, a group of young people (in their mid to late twenties) are given a series of head shots and asked to evaluate each for an (albeit fake) advertising campaign.

The photos feature a range of people from different age groups, including several over 50.

What they don’t know, is that the over 50s are watching on.

Video via APIA Australia

“What’s the perfect age?” the facilitator asks the group, “high twenties” one person responds to general agreement.

Despite the older group including a man that races cars, a women who works in pathology, a drone pilot, graphic designer and a personal trainer, all are deemed “too old” for the advertising brief.

“When I hear fitness, I automatically go to someone in a younger age group,” one of the young women says.

“I just feel like they’re a little bit too old for it… to have had sex,” another laughs.

When the two groups finally converge and the young people meet their elders face to face they realise maybe they’re not so open minded as they thought.

“There is life after 50, okay?” one of the older women says.

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