You can give jobs to older women if you have reasonable grounds for believing them to be the best candidates. But if you are planning to take them on because of their age, rather than their competence, you are practising age discrimination - a form of discrimination which is now unlawful - unless you fall within one of the few tightly-defined exemptions, or can prove that your actions are 'objectively justified'. Beware the case of the 19-year old worker in a gentleman's club in London, who won her age discrimination claim that she was sacked for being 'too young'.
'Objective justification' requires the use of 'proportionate means' in pursuit of a 'legitimate aim' (see Age Discrimination). A 'legitimate aim' is not defined, and will differ from business to business: so it can be very difficult for anyone to judge whether a case is worth defending. Your recruitment policy could therefore turn out to be very expensive, in terms of both time and money, and you have absolutely no guarantee that either the time or the money will have been well spent. Is it worth it?
