12. Age discrimination

This chapter deals with age discrimination law under the Equality Act. It discusses the history and background of age discrimination law, protected characteristics, prohibited conduct on grounds of age discrimination, and key debates about how the law operates and how it might be improved in the future. There is no longer a default retirement age in the UK. If an employer wishes to retire an employee at a particular age, he has to have objective reasons for choosing that age. Unlike other protected characteristics, direct age discrimination can be justified, and there are a number of exceptions, such as length of service benefits, which have been kept from the Age Regulations of 2006.