On September 25, 2025, Aistė Leščinskaitė, a junior researcher at the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences, participated in one of the largest international conferences dedicated to discussing various forms of discrimination. The event, held in Horsens, Denmark, was organized for the fourth time by the Centre for the Experimental-Philosophical Study of Discrimination (CEPDISC) at Aarhus University.

In the session “Discrimination and Legal Issues,” A. Leščinskaitė presented a paper titled “The Extension of Older Women’s Employment: Legal Framework, Guarantees, and Intentions.”

During her presentation, she introduced the research topics explored within the ongoing project “(Not)prolonging the working life of older women: legal environment, guarantees and intentions” (VAM), focusing on the prolongation of older women’s employment. Leščinskaitė emphasized that as societies age, countries need policies that promote active participation of older individuals in the labor market. So far, older women face legal and practical challenges that hinder the continuation of their employment. These difficulties are mostly driven by age discrimination, gender inequality, and the lack of effective legal protection measures to safeguard their workplace rights. Older employees—particularly women—often experience psychological violence in the workplace, which negatively affects their well-being and employment sustainability. However, many older women do not report these problems due to distrust in employers’ willingness to act, as well as fear of retaliation, including job loss or deterioration of working conditions. Although the Labour Code of Lithuania obliges employers to ensure a safe and healthy work environment, and international legal standards—such as EU directives and International Labour Organization conventions—provide a framework for the protection of older workers, there often remains a gap between legal provisions and their practical implementation.

Projektą VAM finansuoja Lietuvos mokslo taryba (LMTLT), sutarties Nr. S-MIP-24-29.

All conference presentations can be found here.