I see a strong conflation of &quot;older&quot; with &quot;lots of personal responsibilities&quot; that affect job performance.<p>It&#x27;s clearly true that 30 year olds are more likely to have kids then 20 year olds, but it seems 40 and 50 year olds get &quot;blamed&quot; for being unproductive because of things like kids, mortgages, etc, than do the 30 year olds.<p>The interesting study is the 45 year old with no kids, house or marriage. Are they &quot;old&quot; too ?