As someone who heard from EA at age 40 and is now 50, this question comes up often in discussions with more experienced professionals. I wrote about my personal journey, which I couldn't have done without the luxury of much free time to learn and explore in this space. A recent post by Jim Chapman also describes the effort that can be needed to transition into the space.

In my local group, I'm mostly the oldest participant, as many other people my age don't feel very welcome in a group of younger people. They mostly also see donations as their pathway to contributing, which doesn't require the level of involvement in the community that people with career ambitions have. The group is simply less useful in an instrumental way; the same applies to EA conferences.

In organizations, the hiring process can sometimes be more focused on younger candidates. Some organizations prioritize a strong alignment of values, which involves cultivating hard-to-fake signals such as investing in networking, volunteering, attending conferences and retreats, and making a pledge that may present a significant challenge for individuals with family responsibilities. 

The first time I applied for jobs was in my late 40s in EA organizations, as I was previously accustomed to networking and receiving invitations for work opportunities. Completing work trials under time pressure often seemed tailored to those with more fluid intelligence, which is typically higher in younger individuals, as opposed to the crystallized intelligence that develops later in life. 

Sometimes, experienced professionals will vent how they were invited to a job and then had to start at the first stage, how they were treated unprofessionally in the hiring process, or even when they start how their expertise is not valued in an organization led by people with little prior leadership experience. This can lead to losing out on more experienced people. (At Successif, we help mid-career and more senior people navigate these challenges in the area of AI risk).

This leads me to the question if EA is the right place for more senior people. When I talk to people my age about impact, I'm more likely to recommend the donation opportunities at Effektiv Spenden, the 10% Pledge, or the book Moral Ambition for career inspiration than the global or national EA websites. While I often enjoy being the oldest person and spending much time in deep discussions with philosophically minded people 20 years my junior, I expect this to be the exception. People with families and busy jobs are probably looking for a quick way to shift their focus and connect to people. at a similar point in their life Other services and brands are probably now better suited to cater to this need than EA.

I agree this is a potential concern.

As it happens, since 2020, the community has continued to age. As of the end of last year, it's median 31, mean 22.4, and we can see that it has steadily aged across years.

It's clear that a key contributor to our age distribution is the age at which people first get involved with EA, which is median 24, mean 26.7, but the age at which people first get involved has also increased over time.

I think people sometimes point to our outreach focusing on things like university groups to explain this pattern. But I think this is likely over-stated, as this accounts for only a small minority of our recruiting, and most of the ways people first hear about EA seems to be more passive mechanisms, not tied to direct outreach, which would be accessible to people at older ages (we'll discuss this in more detail in the 2024 iteration of this post). 

That said, different age ranges do appear to have different levels of awareness of EA, with highest awareness seeming to be at the 25-34 or 35-44 age ranges. (Though our sample size is large, the number of people who we count as aware of EA are very low, so you can see these estimates are quite uncertain. Our confidence in these estimates will increase as we run more surveys). This suggests that awareness of EA may be reaching different groups unevenly, which could partly contribute to lower engagement from older age groups. But this need not be the result of differences in our outreach. It could result from different levels of interest from the different groups.

Walking around the conference halls this February at EAG Global in the Bay Area, the average age seemed to be in the mid-20s or so.

The average age of EAG Bay Area 2025 feedback survey respondents was 30, FYI. 

I don't think this removes the thrust of your questions, which I think are good and important questions, but people do seem to consistently underestimate the average age of EA Global attendees.