Sunday, March 3, 2013

Age Discrimination and Surveys

Do survey sites discriminate against older folks?
I'm not claiming they do, but I do have a suspicion. While most surveys ask you what category of age you fall into, they claim it is just for the purpose of separating their findings into certain demographic groups and that it's just for research purposes.
That may be true. However, recently I suggested to a friend of mine that he might like to join a survey group since it involved cars, which I knew he would like since he's a big car enthusiast. The only difference between he and I was that he was past a certain age and I was under that age. The survey site was even encouraging new members to join who were interested in cars. While my application to join the survey group was accepted, his was not.
Further, I tested a survey - one that is offered by many sites; it's actually the same survey that is offered over and over again. In one of the surveys I put down an age that was over 65 just to see what would happen. It was rejected. When the same survey came around a few days later, I put my actual age and it was accepted. I did this two more times just to make sure it was not a fluke. Sure enough, the older age was the one that always got rejected.
There's not a problem with survey sites choosing to exclude people of a certain age, or some other demographic. In most case they are marketing a product or service that is more likely to find an audience with a certain, usually younger, age group. But, if you are of a certain age you might find yourself with fewer surveys being offered to you.

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