A Study on Employment Discrimination for Older People-The Construction and Improvement of China's “Anti-Employment Discrimination Law”

With the advent of population ageing, China will usher in the most significant wave of population ageing in the next 30 years. A series of social problems, such as pension pressure and the labour shortage, have followed one after another. At the same time, the vast potential brought by China's substantial elderly population must also be paid attention to. Governments of various countries encourage the employment of older people and explicitly prohibit employers from age discrimination against elderly workers in legislation. However, there are significant differences in specific safeguards, among which the United States and South Korea are the most typical. By studying the two countries' legal systems, an improvement plan is put forward to protect the employment rights of elderly Chinese workers. By reflecting on China's current labour legislation, this article finds that older people in China face severe discrimination in employment. Relevant legal provisions prevent retired older people from obtaining “Labor Law” protection. Therefore, in the future, Chinese laws need to clarify the scope of employment discrimination and give older workers status; further, reform the social security system; at the same time, design flexible employment methods to meet the physical needs of older workers; encourage employers to hire older workers through incentive policies, and provide various preferential policies such as tax relief and wage subsidies for enterprises that employ elderly workers. The government is also actively carrying out employment skills training programmes for older people to improve the labour quality of older people workers. Through these policies, the job market generally accepts older workers and alleviates the social problems caused by ageing.