“I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. Isn’t it much easier to fly a commercial jet nowadays than it was 50-60 years ago? Newer models, most of the flying is automated anyway?”
Yep, but when that automation fails you want the best pilot. Note the 737 Max failures. Both fatal crashes were foreign airlines of third world nations. We had the same failures on some 737 Maxs in the USA and also Europe. Superior pilots did not crash it.
We should see what happen after 2030 when our airlines add start to hire diversity quotas. I would guess we might guess away with it for a little while because all the airlines would place a diverse pilot with an older and more experienced pilot.